The presidential race is a toss-up as the last key state in Vice President Harris’ column drifts towards former President Trump.
But even as polls show a tight race, some voters are rethinking long-held beliefs. This week’s Power Rankings draws up the new Harris and Trump coalitions and shows how they could propel either candidate to victory.
Fox News Power Rankings presidential forecast.
Harris ties herself to an unpopular Joe Biden during media blitz
Harris will make headlines tomorrow when she sits down for her first ever formal interview on Fox News.
The sit-down will be the Vice President’s biggest and most closely-watched opportunity in an uneven media tour.
Her talk show appearances went smoothly, and an interview on Call Her Daddy, one of the country’s most popular podcasts, generated the same kind of excitement among young women that Trump has gained from male influencers.
But last Wednesday, asked if she would have done something differently than President Biden during his administration, Harris told ABC’s The View that “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Harris on ABC’s The View.
Voters view Trump’s policies much more positively, with 44% saying they helped and 31% saying they hurt. In other words, a “net help” of 13 points.
The same poll found Trump’s retrospective job approval is higher than in any of their surveys when he was president.
Harris’ campaign knows that tying the Vice President to Biden isn’t a winner. In her first interview as the Democratic nominee, Harris said it was time to “turn the page on the last decade;” her bus tells voters she offers “a new way forward.”
Trump allies have said they will use the clip in new ads, though it’s not yet clear whether that will happen.
Voters on candidate qualities.
FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: THE BIGGEST SURPRISES COME AFTER OCTOBER
Trump is gaining in four key voting groups. Compared to the 2020 electorate, he is up six points with male voters, while Democrats have shed 20 points worth of Black vote, 10 points of Hispanic vote, and 3 points with young voters, according to the Times/Siena poll.
The Black and Hispanic gains are the most important for the GOP. These voters can make all the difference in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.
The column on the left in the charts shows the percentage that each group made up of the 2020 electorate according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. The percentages apply within each voter category (race, age, etc).
Men, for example, made up 47% of the electorate, which means 53% of voters were women.
That is where the picture becomes more complicated for the Trump campaign.
As men have shifted six points towards the former president, women have shifted three points towards Harris. Voters with a college degree have shifted 10 points towards the Vice President, giving her an overall 26-point advantage with the bloc. And Harris has flipped seniors.
Harris is gaining with key voter groups.
This forecast previously gave Harris an advantage in Michigan. The state has delivered for Democrats since 2016, and the GOP’s turnout operation appears to be particularly disorganized there.
But that isn’t enough when the polls show a race this tight. Both campaigns are making regular visits, and Republicans have booked more spending here than any other battleground state (except Pennsylvania, where ad rates are higher).
Fox News Power Rankings presidential map.
Harris has a six-vote edge that includes Nebraska’s second district. That is important for the Vice President, since a victory there, combined with the Rust Belt battlegrounds, would give her an outright win.
But with so many coin-flip states, this race looks like an electoral college dogfight. The presidential election moves from Harris Lead to Toss Up.
Democrats hold a ticket-splitting edge in battleground states, including Nevada
The Senate forecast still puts Republicans in control with 51 seats. An all-but-certain flip in West Virginia and an edge in Montana gets them over the line.
FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: SENATE REPUBLICANS TAKE CHARGE
Fox News Power Rankings Senate map.
History suggests that the gap will diminish by election night. The direction of these ticket-splitters is less clear. Either Trump voters will come home to downballot GOP candidates, or support for the former president is softer than polls suggest.
For now, with polls showing Nevada’s Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen well ahead of Republican challenger Sam Brown, their Senate race moves from Toss Up to Lean D.
Three weeks until election night
More than four million voters have now cast a ballot. Early voting is underway in all the battlegrounds except Nevada.
Tomorrow, Fox News will be the only place to see both presidential candidates. At 11AM eastern, watch Harris Faulkner’s town hall with Trump in front of an all-woman audience in Georgia. Hours later, Bret Baier will sit down with Harris in Pennsylvania. The interview airs at 6PM on Special Report.
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Fox News Media has also proposed a second Harris-Trump debate to be moderated by Baier and Martha MacCallum.
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