Close contest between Trump and Harris in this battleground state turned red: poll

A new poll suggests former President Trump holds a slim five-point advantage over Vice President Kamala Harris in the battle for Florida's 30 electoral votes.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, stands at 47% support among likely voters in Florida in a USA Today/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV survey released on Tuesday, with Harris, the Democratic Party's nominee, at 42%.

The survey, of 500 likely Sunshine State voters, indicates Democrat turned independent Robert F. Kennedy at 5%, Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver at 1%, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West registering at less than 1%.

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Florida was once the largest of the battleground states in presidential elections. Former President Obama narrowly carried the state in his 2008 and 2012 White House victories, and Trump edged out Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the state in 2016.

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But four years ago, in his 2020 re-election defeat, Trump won Florida by 3.3 points over President Biden, which was the biggest winning margin in the state in a presidential contest in 16 years.

And in the 2022 midterms, conservatives surged at the state level, with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis winning re-election by 19 points and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio securing a third term in the Senate by more than 16 points.

"While not exactly a flashing red warning light for Trump, the survey is a caution sign for anyone who thinks the race is sure to be a blowout in Florida," Suffolk University Research Center director David Paleologos said.

New voter registration numbers released Monday in Florida indicate Republicans with a one million person advantage over the Democrats. That marks a vast turnaround from four years ago, when Democrats held a slight edge in voter registration.

"Given those circumstances, I was surprised that Harris is within striking distance being only five points down," Paleologos added.

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A Fox News poll conducted in June, when President Biden was still at the top of the Democrats' 2024 ticket, indicated Trump with a four-point 50%-46% advantage in Florida.

But Trump's polling margins over Biden expanded after the president's disastrous debate performance against his GOP challenger in late June. 

Biden's rambling and uneven answers at the debate fueled questions over whether the 81-year-old president had the physical and mental abilities to handle another four years in the White House and sparked a chorus of calls from within his own party to end his 2024 campaign.

Democrats quickly coalesced around Harris after Biden's blockbuster announcement three and a half weeks ago that he was ending his re-election campaign and endorsing his vice president to succeed him at the top of the party's ticket.

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Harris has enjoyed a bump in the polls and a surge in fundraising since taking over as the party's 2024 standard-bearer.

The new poll indicates Harris matching Trump for voter enthusiasm in Florida, with 89% of each group saying they are very or somewhat excited to vote for the candidate they're supporting. Enthusiasm among Biden voters in Florida stood at just 60% in a USA Today/Suffolk poll from June.

The new survey was conducted Aug. 7-11, with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

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