Trump Leads Harris In Five Out Of Seven Swing States, WaPo

The Washington Post has updated its polling average of the seven key swing states, showing that Trump retains a lead in five of the most important battleground states, with Harris leading in Wisconsin. The pair is tied in Pennsylvania - the state most likely to determine the winner in November.

• The Post notes that Trump's lead in the four Sun Belt states - NC, NV, AZ, GA - currently sites outside the normal polling margin of error.
• The WaPo data shows that Harris has closed the gap by between 1-1.5 percentage points in all the swing states since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race.
• The data may be best viewed as a preliminary marker for the direction of the race post-Biden. Other key outlets, including The Hill-DDHQ, The Economist, and the NYT are waiting for more high-quality polls before publishing their own battleground polling averages and restarting their forecast models.
• Election analyst Nate Silver's forecast model (updated Aug 6), one of the few data driven models operating, currently shows Harris leading Trump 52.4% - 47%. Silver's polling averages show significantly tighter races in the Sun Belt, demonstrating the level of uncertainty in the available polling.
• WaPo notes in their report: "Our polling averages now reflect a Harris-Trump matchup, although we continue to put some weight on polls from before Biden dropped out on July 21."

Figure 1: Polling Average in Swing States