John King breaks down the 'big headline' from new polling data

Tonight. Harris's momentum a new CNN poll showing Harris picking up support in some very important states swing states. Let's just show you what we're looking at. Harris is ahead of Trump in the key blue wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin. In Arizona, though, Trump is in the lead. Georgia and Nevada are both within the margin of error, although Harris is technically up a point in each. In Pennsylvania, that is a dead heat right now, and we're gonna have a lot more on all of these numbers with John King in just a moment. A deep dive on them at the wall. You know, it comes, though, as Vice President Kamala Harris is now trying to talk more about policy and to define herself as different than Biden for the first time, announcing some differences from the president on taxes in New Hampshire today, Harris announcing she would tax investment income at a lower rate than President Biden has proposed in. If you earn $1 million a year or more, the tax rate on your long term capital gains will be 28% under my plan, because we know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad based economic growth and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger. To be clear, she would increase taxes by a lot less than Biden on capital gains, but still increase them more from where they are now. Former President Trump firing off nearly a dozen online videos around the time that Harris was speaking about her economic policies, one after the other. He was talking about the border, communism, crime, Biden and also the economy. Trump cash versus Kamala crash. We're going to have a crash like 1929 if she gets in. It will not be pretty. That line of attack actually is reminiscent, in fact, almost identical to what Trump was warning about the last time around. If Biden wins and you're going to have a stock market crash the equivalent of 1928 and 1929. Of course, that has not happened despite Trump's prediction. It is clear, though, that both of sides know that the economy is key in the election, right? It is the focus for voters more than anything else. So John King, now at the Magic Wall, as promised. So, John, as you look at ItrillionIGHT now with all the latest, you know, polling data, all that you've got, where and what are the paths right now to 270 tonight? Erin, strap in our new polling shows, yes, some Harris momentum, but the big headline is this is a very, very, very, very I could add a few more very close races. Let's just look at the data. What it the sources. This is where we are right now. The yellow states are our tossup states. They include North Carolina. We did not poll in North Carolina. This time I'm going to lean it. Red Democrats will get mad at me, but I'm going to lean that one red until I see data that proves otherwise, because it has gone red in every election since 2008, when Obama won it was Republican before that. Here's our new polling. Harris ahead in Wisconsin outside the margin. Harris ahead in Michigan just outside the margin. That gets her to 250 right. Donald Trump ahead in Arizona outside the margin that let me make that red. That would move him up to 246. Pretty close right. And then you mentioned these other states are too close to call Pennsylvania a genuine tie. Let's just say Harris is exact is really plus one in Georgia and plus one in Nevada. This is just one poll. This is a hypothetical here. That alone though, if she could held that would get her to 272 and she could win the presidency without Pennsylvania. But again, she's plus one in the polling. It's just as plausible. And we've seen other data that Donald Trump could win Georgia and Donald Trump could win Nevada as well. That would get him to 268. So what happens then? You're looking at Pennsylvania, right. Let's assume Harris exit out. It's a tie right now. If Trump won he'd be in the United States. If Harris won it under this scenario. And again, it's a scenario that gets you to 269 to 68. And it all comes down to Nebraska's second congressional district. Either a tie or it puts Harris over the top at 270. I'm not saying that's going to happen. What I'm saying is, if you look at this data, here's where we start today. Those polls tell us, Erin, look, we are eight weeks and six days away from counting votes. It's competitive 269 to 268. that's a nightmare scenario. I think for so many in this country, no matter which which which side of the political spectrum you may be on. but, you know, John, when I was just mentioning right before you came on, talk about the economy, which both Harris and Trump were focused on today. It is the number one issue, and Trump still has, at least from the polling you're looking at. He shows the edge there. Right. This is Trump's biggest advantage, which is why he wants to hold it and why you see the vice president out doing economic speeches. Her ads are also tilting now heavily toward the economy in Arizona, Trump's top five overall voters view him as the better candidate by 15 points on the economy in Georgia, where Harris is tied maybe plus one. Trump has a slider event. So you can see the trend here. In places where Harris is competitive or ahead, Trump's numbers are lower. Nevada is the outlier. It got thrown. This economy got thrown in the trash during Covid. But the key for Harris is to bring this Trump advantage down where she's winning in Wisconsin. She's up six in the state. Trump only plus two on the economy. This is her biggest challenge. Try to if she can't catch Trump on the economy, at least make him plus two or plus four. Not plus 816 or more. The economy right now is Trump's biggest advantage by far. All right. Well now you go down deep in the polling today, there were some warning signs for Harris in specific vulnerability with with key voting groups. What are they. So let's look first the gender gap gets talked about a lot. Let's look at women voters. If you look at these numbers Harris is essentially tracking Biden a little better in some places. She would probably like to improve these numbers. But when it comes to women, look at Harris now and Biden 2020 and they're relatively good right there. She would like to improve them, obviously, because she's struggling. One reason you want to approve them is because she is struggling a bit among men, voters, male voters, especially when you look out in the western states in 2020, Trump won them by two points in Arizona. He's up 14 in 2020, 12 and ten. That's about the same. But if you if you look at Nevada eight plus 18 plus five. So this is a problem for the vice president. Without a doubt. She needs to try to improve her standing among male voters. And again you can trace a lot of that back to the economy. And people just don't know a lot about her. Here's one other thing. Quickly, I want to show you, though, Hispanic voters are critical in both Arizona and Nevada. And look at this. Biden won by 24 points. Harris only by six in Arizona right now. Biden won in Nevada by 26, Harris by 20. Smaller subset of voters here. So the margin of error is a little higher. So this might not be as bad as it looks, but it's still bad. And one of the places the vice president has to do some improvement among men, among Latinos, most of all, that would help itself on the economy. And what about independents and moderates? So this is fascinating to me. And this just raises the stakes for the debate outside the chart here. Watch this. When you bring it up, independents and moderates, this this is into just independent voters. But the trend lines are similar with moderates. Look at how Trump is now winning in Arizona, in Georgia, in Michigan, among independents. Right. Biden won all of these battleground states among independents back in 2020. This is an area the vice president needs to approve standing voters in the middle. These are people who self-identify as independents. You see very similar numbers among people who self-identify as moderates. She's struggling in the middle. She is viewed as more liberal than moderate Joe Biden. And so she's struggling a bit in the middle. But here's the opportunity. A lot of people don't know a lot about the vice president, which is why she's out there giving these speeches. Right. Look at this. The percentage of voters in each of these battleground states who say they might change their mind. It's in the teens. 11% in Georgia tends to be in the low to mid teens in all these other battleground states. But look at the independents 24%, 23%, 27%, 22%, 29%. They are open to changing their mind. If Kamala Harris can prove herself on the economy and on leadership, these are the independent numbers. They're very similar among moderates. We don't talk much more about the in this polarized climate, about the middle of the electorate. There is room for her to grow in the middle if she makes her case. Yes. When you look at a numbers of 268 to 69, at the end of the day, right, any tiny margin of these groups matter so much. All right, John, thank you so much for all of that. So, let's go now to, Scott Jennings, Kate Bedingfield. So Kate Harris is up in Wisconsin and Michigan. Let's just start with that where John started. and these are massive turnarounds over the past weeks from Biden. And now outside the margin of error. Do you feel great about this? I feel good, I feel encouraged. I wouldn't say I feel great because I think the totality, the numbers show that this is still and is going to be an incredibly, incredibly close race. We just heard John go through it. I think what the numbers today show is that Kamala Harris has more pathways, more conceivable pathways to to 70, than Trump does, or at least then Trump felt like he did six weeks ago when Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket. I think there's no question his path has narrowed. So I think these numbers should give Democrats. They should be heartened. I think it's showing that she, you know, continues to build strength in the coalition that she needs to win. And as John was just saying that she has room to grow. Trump, I think, probably has a little bit less room to grow, in part because he is so well defined. so, you know, I think it it is encouraging. I don't think by any stretch the Democrats should view this as a slam dunk, though. There is a long way to go in this race. And it's clearly very, very close. I mean, it's got, you know, obviously a few weeks ago, pretty much all those swing states, Trump thought he had it locked up. He was talking about New Hampshire. Right. So it is it is, you know, a small solace to say, oh, well, she's only up 1%. Georgia, you know, we can still do I mean, it's still got to be pretty grim to look at these for, Trump's team, isn't it? I don't know, I mean, he was underestimated badly in several of these states by a lot of polling in 2016 and 2020, including in some CNN polling. I might add. I agree with Kate. I think it's an incredibly close race. Either of these candidates could win any of these states we're talking about. And I also agree with John that the ticket to victory for the middle and for some of these, male voters that they're competing for is really to talk about the economy. I had to chuckle a little bit today listening to her talk about her tax policy. I mean, she's like, see, Joe Biden's tax policy, he's only going to kill you as much as, you know, Jason Voorhees. But I'm more like Mike Myers sees it. That better? No, it's not better. They're both scary as hell. And either way, you're going to be dead. And so I think she's going to have to come up with something a little better. Then I'm going to raise your taxes a little less than Joe Biden is, and she wants to do it. And that's the cap on the capital gains, specifically on the main tax policy there, at least as of now, there's been no difference between the two. Let me just ask you, though, you know, one thing that John mentioned there when we're talking about these different voting groups and Scott just brought up men, but I want to ask about independents and moderates, right. Those independents that he was looking at in swing states, 25 to 30% of them are open to changing their mind at this point. All right. Is this is this something that worries you, or is this something that actually makes you feel good because you are supporting the candidate about whom people know less? Well? I think it's certainly shows that she has more room to grow. And so I think that as she is continuing to define herself out on the campaign trail, also, we've now past Labor Day. So you have voters really starting to tune in in a way that, you know, historically they don't pre Labor Day. So this is really a moment for her to make her case. And she also has Donald Trump out there. Her opponent you know, continuing to try to throw everything at the wall against her to see what sticks. He's not really making a coherent and cohesive, argument against her. And, he's continuing to use some of these same, you know, tired, ugly personal attacks, which we know that moderate and independent voters are tired of. They rejected it in 2020. And we've seen in all of the polling since this race started to, to come together about a year ago when it was going to be Trump versus Biden. We saw that people said, we don't want this rematch, we don't want more of this. So we're getting more of the same from Trump. They're getting something new and different from Kamala Harris that they're excited about.