- Harris is competitive across key Sun Belt battlegrounds, per the latest NYT/Siena College polls.
- Harris leads Trump in Arizona and North Carolina. She trails by a narrow margin in Nevada.
- Georgia, which was fading as a battleground in June, is now poised to be competitive again.
In early July, former President Donald Trump was well positioned to sweep the Sun Belt swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina.
It was a stark reversal from 2020 when President Joe Biden won three of the four states and only lost North Carolina by a one-point margin.
But Biden's decision to step aside as the Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris' ascension as the presumptive nominee has given the party renewed competitiveness in the Sun Belt battleground states, according to the latest series of New York Times/Siena College polls.
Biden's diminished political standing in the Sun Belt had narrowed his path to victory to winning Pennsylvania and the upper Midwestern battlegrounds, with virtually no margin of error.
But according to the Times/Siena surveys, Harris has no such issue.
Across the four Sun Belt swing states, both Harris and Trump are tied at 48% support each among likely voters.
Harris held leads in Arizona and North Carolina, besting Trump by five points (50% to 45%) in the former state and by two points (49% to 47%) in the latter state among likely voters.
In Nevada, Trump led Harris by one point (48% to 47%), and in Georgia, the former president held a four-point advantage (50% to 46%) over the vice president.
A Harris victory in Arizona would be significant, as Trump has long made immigration one of his marquee issues. But the vice president has leaned into her prosecutorial background to make her case to swing voters in the border state — while also emphasizing the former president's efforts to scuttle a bipartisan immigration bill that fell apart in Congress earlier this year.
Another notable takeaway from the polls was Harris' stronger standing with young, Black, and women voters.
Across the Sun Belt battlegrounds, Harris held a 16-point edge (55% to 39%) among likely voters aged 18 to 29, a critical bloc that had been largely cool to Biden's reelection campaign over issues like the economy and the conflict in Gaza.
While Biden was also winning over Black voters, Harris' 84% share with this critical group buoys her standing in the Sun Belt and especially in North Carolina — which has not backed a Democratic presidential nominee since Barack Obama won the state in 2008.
In North Carolina, Harris boasts an 86% to 9% lead over Trump among Black voters.
And among women in the Sun Belt swing states, Harris held a 14-point lead (55% to 41%) over Trump. The economy and reproductive rights are proving to be forceful issues that could widen what's expected to be a significant gender gap. (Male voters overall backed Trump by a 15-point margin in the survey.)
The development comes just days before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention and Harris' widely anticipated speech, roughly one month after Biden's departure.
With most voters familiar with Harris but not as familiar with her positions on an array of issues — due largely to the condensed nature of her presidential candidacy — the vice president's speech could be a critical turning point for her campaign. And it'll come as Democrats aim for Harris to receive a post-convention polling bounce that could sustain momentum for her campaign ahead of the planned September 10 presidential debate and the start of early voting in an array of critical states that month.
