This is an adapted excerpt from the September 23 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
With just over six weeks until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris is gaining ground. According to a new NBC News poll, Harris holds a 5-point lead over former President Donald Trump among registered voters, 49% to 44%. While that number is still within the poll’s margin of error, it should be encouraging for Harris’ campaign.
Her campaign will be pleased to see that she has made gains with voters on key issues, including the economy. While Trump still holds a lead on that metric, his lead is smaller than it was when President Joe Biden was in the race. Harris’s approval rating has also increased, up 16 points since July.
But that said, the truth is that national polls don’t matter. Polls in the contests of states matter. After NBC News released those national numbers, The New York Times and Siena College released a poll showing Trump ahead in Arizona and Georgia. The same poll shows the two are effectively tied in North Carolina. If you look at polls in the other contests of states — Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — they’re all margin-of-error races.
In the final weeks of this campaign, Harris needs her supporters to stay engaged and excited. The campaign wants those supporters to call their friends in the swing states and do what they can to help, by volunteering to ensure that those registered voters become likely voters on Harris’ side of the equation.
But time is running out. Democrats have six weeks to go. They have to get this done.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
