Vice President Kamala Harris' surging campaign has her competing with former President Donald Trump in four key Sunbelt states — and holding a narrow nationwide lead, according to a series of new polls.
Harris is comfortably leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona, 50% to 45%, and is also slightly ahead in North Carolina, 49% to 47%, according to polling by the New York Times and Siena College.
Trump leads Harris in Georgia, 50% to 46%, and is barely ahead of her in Nevada, 48% to 47%, the Times reported Saturday.
All the surveys involved head-to-head matchups and all but the Arizona results fell within the polls' margins of error, the Times said.
The polls were conducted from Aug. 8 to 15, ahead of this week's scheduled Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Harris is set to deliver an acceptance speech on Thursday after securing enough delegate votes earlier this month to ensure her nomination.
The poll results represent a stark turnaround in all four states, which Trump appeared to have locked up before President Joe Biden abruptly dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris less than a month ago.
They also show Harris consolidating her support among younger, nonwhite and female voters who had been shying away from Biden, the Times said, with Harris holding a 13-point advantage among TikTok users in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.
By comparison, the same group supported Biden over Trump by just 3 points in May, the Times said.
The Sunbelt could provide a potential path for Harris to win the 270 Electoral College votes needed to capture the White House and the latest polls pose a potential problem for Trump, for whom the Sunbelt is essential to victory, the Times said.
Last week, Times/Siena polling showed Harris narrowly leading Trump in the nation's three other core battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Washington Post-ABC-News-Ipsos poll results released early Sunday showed Harris leading Trump, 49% to 45%, among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup.
When other candidates were added to the choice, Harris led Trump, 47% to 44%, with 5% favoring Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Washington Post said.
The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points, meaning that Harris' edge isn't statistically significant, according to the Post.
Her 3-point lead in a race with third-party and independent candidates is also smaller than Biden's 4.5-point margin over Trump in the 2020 popular vote, the Post noted.
