Democrats believe they can win the south after polls reveal a boost in support for Kamala Harris in Georgia and North Carolina. Harris is leading Republican rival Donald Trump by two percentage points in both states, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. The Vice President’s campaign is heavily focused on its efforts in the south with Harris frequently visiting Georgia, which President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, and North Carolina, which she hopes to flip from Trump.
Local Democratic leaders, citing the surging enthusiasm for her candidacy, are now convinced Harris, 59, can secure the first double win in Georgia and North Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bloomberg reported. But the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows that Trump maintains strength amongst voters in the major swing states, with his odds better than 50 percent in five of them. As it stands currently, Trump is predicted to win Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia – all of which Democrats took in 2020 – and North Carolina. Harris maintains the lead in the ‘blue wall’ states of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Since Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris, the vice president has focused on the so-called ‘blue wall’ states that have been the centerpiece of successful Democratic campaigns. She’s also frequently visited Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. Harris is understood to have opened up an electoral path in the traditionally Republican states of Georgia and North Carolina, which no Democrat has won together in nearly five decades.
The Harris campaign has the largest in-state operation in Georgia of any Democratic presidential campaign cycle, Bloomberg reported. It is operating 24 offices with more than 190 staff members. Democratic Party Chair Joe Clark, based the Atlanta suburb of Fayetteville, told the newspaper he has never seen such involvement from a campaign headquarters. Similarly, in Greensboro, North Carolina, the campaign office has been a ‘madhouse’, Guilford County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Kirkpatrick said, adding that scores of volunteers turned up after Michelle Obama encouraged to ‘do something’ during her speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Democrats, citing the recent tip in the polls, believe that North Carolina and Georgia are a ‘toss up’ and could go to Harris, who is holding on to the national poll lead. But analysts reviewing the latest I&I/TIPP Poll data, say her lead over Trump may not be sustainable because of his strength amongst swing state voters. Trump has a 52 percent chance of winning Pennsylvania and Nevada , polls show. He also has a more than 60 percent chance of taking Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
Meanwhile, Harris is using a New Hampshire campaign stop today to propose an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses – presenting a pro-entrepreneur plan that may soften her previous calls for wealthy Americans and large corporations to pay higher taxes. She wants to expand from $5,000 to $50,000 tax incentives for small business startup expenses, with the goal of eventually spurring 25 million new small business applications over four years. Harris is making the announcement while visiting the Portsmouth area, across the Piscataqua River from Maine . New Hampshire has been reliably blue in recent presidential elections, but the trip could also have some benefit across state lines since Maine splits its electoral votes, allowing candidates to win some without carrying the full state.
Still, it marks a rare deviation from Harris spending most of her time visiting a tight group of Midwest and Sun Belt battlegrounds likely to decide November’s election. It comes after Harris marked Labor Day with Monday rallies in Detroit and Pittsburgh and before she heads back to Pittsburgh on Friday – marking her 10th visit to Pennsylvania in 2024. By contrast, today is her first visit to New Hampshire in years. Trump has called for lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent – a break with Biden who in his budget proposal in March suggested setting the corporate tax rate at 28 percent. Harris has released relatively few major policy proposals in the roughly six weeks since taking over the top of the Democratic ticket, but has not suggested she’s planning to deviate greatly from his administration on tax policy.
The small business plan Harris is presenting today has lots of facets that many in the business community would like. But that contrasts another proposal Harris unveiled last month, where she promised to help fight inflation by working to combat ‘price gouging’ from food producers that she suggests have driven grocery store prices up unnecessarily. Harris has built her campaign around calls to grow and strengthen the nation’s middle class – and suggested that rich Americans and large corporations should ‘pay their fair share’ in higher taxes. Biden, who similarly built his campaign around promoting the middle class , won New Hampshire by 7 percentage points in 2020, but Trump came much closer to winning it against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Still, the Harris campaign notes that it has 17 field offices operating in coordination with the state Democratic party across New Hampshire, compared to one for Trump’s campaign.
Some of the state’s Democrats were angry that Biden directed the Democratic National Committee to make South Carolina the first state to vote in the party’s presidential primary this year – displacing Iowa’s caucus and a first-in-the-nation primary New Hampshire held for more than a century. Despite that, New Hampshire pressed ahead with an unsanctioned primary. Though Biden didn’t campaign in it, or appear on the ballot, he still easily won via a write-in drive. Trump is nonetheless hoping to use what happened to his advantage, posting on his social media account that Harris ‘sees there are problems for her campaign in New Hampshire because of the fact that they disrespected it in their primary and never showed up.’ ‘Additionally, the cost of living in New Hampshire is through the roof, their energy bills are some of highest in the country, and their housing market is the most unaffordable in history,’ the former president wrote. ‘I protected New Hampshire’s First-In-The-Nation Primary and ALWAYS will.’
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