Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are locked in a neck-and-neck race in the Granite State, according to a New Hampshire Journal/Praecones Analytica poll released Sunday night.
It’s the latest sign that a state Democrats have carried in seven of the past eight presidential elections may be in play this November.
The poll of 601 registered voters was conducted after the Republican convention but before President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 campaign. It found Trump essentially tied with Biden, 39.7 to 39.4 percent.
Matched against Harris, Trump’s margin grows slightly, to 40.2 to 39.3 percent.
In both matchups, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. receives about 20 percent of the vote.
Among undeclared voters, Harris holds a slim 34.1 to 33.5 percent edge.
Political polls are often described as “a snapshot in time,” and the time when Biden was still in the race is significantly different from the new political reality. But this poll is the latest in a series of polls showing Trump as competitive in the Granite State.
One reason appears to be the widespread concerns about Biden’s capacity to serve. While Granite State Democrats like Sen. Maggie Hassan were saying as recently as Thursday that Biden was ready for four more years in the White House, the voters had strong doubts, the poll shows.
Asked how confident they were that Biden had the physical and mental fitness to do the job, 65 percent of respondents said they had little or no confidence. Among independent voters, the number was 74 percent.
The close margins between Biden and Harris are more evidence of the power of partisanship in current American politics. The percentage of Democrats backing Biden and Harris was nearly identical (77.4 vs. 77.7 percent). Republican support for Trump was just as steady in both cases (84.4 vs. 82.7 percent).
One significant area of difference between the two parties, pollster Jonathan Klingler of Praecones Analytica noted, is in enthusiasm.
“With the Granite State appearing to be in play for the GOP in 2024 for the first time in many cycles, 50.2 percent of registered Republicans report being more enthusiastic about voting this year than four years ago, compared to 35 percent of registered Democrats,” Klingler said.
Republicans are going to need that advantage, too, as the poll finds Trump remains unpopular among Granite Staters.
Asked to describe their personal views of the former president, just 31 percent described themselves as having “always been a Trump supporter,” with another 9.5 percent saying they weren’t on board in the past but are today. That compares with 48 percent who say they’ve never supported Trump and another 11 percent who say they supported him in the past, but no longer.
“These numbers suggest that the former president may be at or near his ceiling in New Hampshire,” Klingler said. “If Harris is able to consolidate the anti-Trump vote by reaching out to the 16 percent of Democrats expressing support for Kennedy, this may decide the race in New Hampshire.”
Former Trump campaign manager and longtime advisor Corey Lewandowski says the new poll confirms his view of the race.
“New Hampshire is going to be a battleground this cycle. That poll tells me the race is a dead even race within the margins,” Lewandowski said. “It means that we’ve got great opportunity because the last time a Republican won the state of New Hampshire in a presidential race was 24 years ago.
“If the Democrats are defending in New Hampshire — and the last poll I saw in the state of Maine shows a tied race there, too — that is a benefit to the Republicans. It allows us to expand to Virginia and potentially Nevada and potentially New Mexico and potentially Minnesota.”
At the same time, Lewandowski said, the fundamentals of the race for the White House haven’t changed.
“We want this race in traditionally Democratic states that are now battleground states to be as tight as possible. But we’re going to keep focusing on our bread and butter: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the states that are going to determine the outcome of this election.”
