Polls show Vice President Kamala Harris is absolutely killing it in … North Dakota?
Strange as it is, an average of the two polls taken there in the past 45 days show her doing better there than any Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008 and, before him, Bill Clinton in 1996.
Of course, “doing better” in North Dakota means she’s still running an average of 18.5 percentage points behind Donald Trump. But President Joe Biden lost the Peace Garden State by over 33 points in 2020 and Hillary Clinton by nearly 36 points in 2016. Still, the sparse polling shows Harris almost halving those margins.
Stranger yet, North Dakota isn’t alone. Harris’ polling is outperforming Biden’s 2020 election margins in nine other red states, among those with a poll that finished fielding since Sept. 10, as of Friday at 10 AM ET.
So what the hell is going on?
One big caveat up front: There aren’t that many polls of safe states. There’s been an average of just 3.5 polls across 30 non-swing states since Sept. 10. And another 11 states, plus Washington, D.C., have seen zero polls.
However, of the 13 red states with polling since Sept. 10, Harris is underperforming Biden’s 2020 margin in only three. And even then, just barely. In Montana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, she’s underperforming by less than 2 points, though she’s still all but certain to lose those states.
What does this mean?
First off, her better-than-Biden performance in Nebraska signals good things for her winning the state’s 2nd District, whose one electoral vote could be critical to a Harris victory. But we mostly already knew that from polls of the district, which show her leading Trump by around 9 points.
The more important thing this data suggests is that this year’s Electoral College result will more closely reflect the results of the popular vote. You know, democracy—or at least something closer to it.
In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote, getting only 45.9%, but he won a hugely disproportionate 56.5% of electoral votes. A similar issue happened in 2020 but flipped: Biden won 51.3% of the popular vote and 56.9% of electoral votes, while Trump won 46.8% of the popular vote and 43.1% of electoral votes.
This Electoral College disadvantage for Democrats has meant that a Republican presidential candidate has won the popular vote only once since George H.W. Bush in 1988 (and it was his son George W. Bush in 2004). This is largely due to Democrats winning huge margins in high-population states—e.g., New York and California—while Republicans, when they do win high-population states like Texas and Florida, often win by single-digit margins.
(Texas and Florida have been left off the red-state chart above because they were decided by less than 6 points in 2020 and flirt with swing-state status. And because of that, they’ve seen vastly more polls than solid red states.)
But Democrats’ Electoral College disadvantage looks to be shrinking this year. Not only is Harris overperforming Biden in many low-population red states, but she’s also underperforming in many high-population blue states.
Oddly, Harris underperforming Biden’s 2020 numbers in New York and California could be a good thing. She still holds blowout margins in each state, but with the margins smaller, her numbers there are likely having less of an effect on her national polls.
The total population of blue and red states where she’s underperforming Biden is 125.4 million, but for states where she’s beating Biden’s 2020 margins, it’s just 64.8 million. (Again, this includes only states with polling since Sept. 10.)
For instance, she leads Trump nationally by 1.7 points, according to 538’s polling average. But if she led by that amount nationally and her polling in New York and California exactly mirrored Biden’s 2020 results, then that would surely mean she’d face steeper odds in states that will be decided by smaller margins, like, say, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But she isn’t. Polls show her running about even with Trump in those states.
Put another way, it suggests Harris will need to win the popular vote by less to also win the Electoral College. And that’s a good thing for American democracy, if not also for Harris.
For her to have a better chance than not of winning the election, she needs to win the popular vote by 2 to 3 points, according to election analyst Nate Silver. But in past elections, Democratic nominees were far worse off. After all, Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 points in 2016 and got only 227 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win.
Harris still faces a stupid, undemocratic disadvantage in the Electoral College, but she appears to be better off than past Democrats have been.
