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Note that in the first few iterations of this State of the Race series that FHQ has not exactly run to where the action is: the seven battlegrounds on which the Harris and Trump campaigns are focusing the majority of their efforts. As in the national polls, the most competitive states have seen a shift in the Democrats' direction since President Biden stepped back from the race in late July.
However, our sights have initially been set on states that had formerly looked newly competitive after the June 27 debate or the ones that might become more competitive in the event that the pendulum swung back further in the other direction since Vice President Harris was elevated to Democratic nominee. Early evidence out of Virginia -- one of New Mexico's peer states in 2020 -- is that the newly constituted Harris-Trump race may be closer than was the case four years ago. In other words, the Old Dominion has not exactly snapped back into a position in the polling that one might expect given a post-exit uniform swing across the country. On the other hand, Texas did, coming in more in line with where the Lone Star state ended up on election day in 2020.
Of the two, New Mexico -- at least in this latest look at the Harris-Trump race -- more closely resembles Texas. The Emerson survey of the Land of Enchantment for The Hill -- 51-40, Harris -- finds the vice president behind where Biden wound up four years ago: just above 50 percent (in the results to the multi-candidate question). Meanwhile, Trump also lags the pace he set in 2020 (44 percent) by about the same margin. [Neither are big enough departures from the 2020 results to be considered outside of the margin of error really.]
But there are a couple of broader points to make in the context of this New Mexico survey. First, sure, this is more evidence of a regression to the mean since Harris entered the race. And the thing is that the polling was actually pretty good in New Mexico four years ago. It undershot both candidates by about the same amount and more or less projected the final margin on election day. Additionally, it is noteworthy that Harris and Trump are already in range of where Biden and Trump were in the state at the end in 2020. But second, one should exercise some caution in drawing too many strong parallels in any state to the 2020 race -- at least at this point in 2024. At this juncture, the connection is something that could be considered more coincidental or the mark of a race in a state that has not just not changed that much.
It is, however, important to kind of get our bearings here in 2024; to establish that in the case of New Mexico, things look like a steady state.
...pending more data.
For now, news that New Mexico is flirting with pushing into the Strong Harris category is all one really needs to know about whether the state may be drawn into a more competitive position.
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