New Battleground Polls Show Harris Has Fundamentally Changed the Race

If there were any doubt whether Kamala Harris has transformed this year’s presidential election, this morning’s latest New York Times/Siena College polls put it to rest.

In our first swing state polls since her entry into the race, Vice President Harris leads Donald J. Trump by four points each in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin among likely voters. It’s a major shift from previous Times/Siena polls, which found Mr. Trump leading Ms. Harris and President Biden by an average of one or two points each across the same three states.

Sometimes, it can be hard to explain why polls shift from week to week or month to month. In today’s polarized politics, it can even be hard to explain why voters ever shift at all. In this case, it’s easy: Ms. Harris’s entry into the race has upended the fundamentals of this election.

Until now, the basic dynamic of the race was driven by Mr. Biden’s unpopularity. It prevented Democrats from running their usual strategy against Mr. Trump and his MAGA allies: Make an election a referendum on Mr. Trump by running a broadly acceptable candidate. Millions of voters were left with an agonizing choice between two candidates they disliked.

With Ms. Harris riding an extraordinary wave of momentum at the top of the ticket, at least for now, the usual political dynamic of the Trump era has been restored. In the poll, at least 49 percent of likely voters in each of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin say they have a favorable view of her, a level neither Ms. Harris nor Mr. Biden obtained in any previous Times/Siena poll this cycle.

Views of Mr. Trump haven’t diminished. In fact, his favorability rating ticked up slightly, to 46 percent across the three states — just enough to represent his highest rating in the history of Times/Siena polling. It’s a tally that might have been enough for a clear lead against Mr. Biden, whose ratings had fallen into the 30s in early July. But for now it’s not enough against the surging Ms. Harris.