Vice President Harris is attacking former President Trump in his home state of Florida, a Suffolk University pollster said following a new poll of the Sunshine State.
USA Today/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV Poll found Harris just 5 points behind Trump among likely Florida voters, 42% to 47%, just outside the poll’s margin of error.
Florida has a million more registered Republicans than Democrats, and Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020.
“Given these circumstances, I was surprised that Harris was within striking range, just 5 points down,” said David Paleologos, director of the Center for Political Research at Suffolk University. told USA Today in a Tuesday report.
Among Florida independents, the vice president leads the former president with 41 percent support versus 34 percent, with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“This poll appears to indicate that the Republican Party’s overwhelming registration advantage is partially offset by Kamala Harris’s victory over independents, especially independent women,” Paleologos said in a press release accompanying the poll. “Florida could become a more swing state than anyone could have expected, especially considering there will be an abortion rights (Amendment 4) issue on the ballot statewide, which could increase women’s participation.”
Harris has surged in the polls since entering the race last month following President Biden’s withdrawal.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed Harris leading Trump by 4 points in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, three key swing states.
Harris also placed ahead of Trump in The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national poll average, 1.4 points above the former president.
“The Suffolk poll is more in line with what the public polls show, which is that as a state, Florida is a five to six point favorite for Donald Trump, which was roughly his margin in 2020,” Scott Tranter, director of data science at Decision Desk headquarters, told The Hill.
The USA Today/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV poll was carried out among Aug. 7 and 11, featuring 500 likely Florida general election voters and a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
This article was updated at 4:09 p.m.
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