Parsing the 2024 presidential election through polling has become more difficult since the presidential debate. Two recent swing state surveys show that polls are now throwing up seemingly contradictory results.

• A Washington Post survey found that “Donald Trump is leading in 6 of the 7 battleground states,” with Pennsylvania and Michigan falling within the polling margin of error.
• A Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey found that Biden “registered his best showing yet” in a poll of battleground states, with a strong lead in Michigan but a significant deficit to Trump in Pennsylvania.
• The two surveys also show a major polling gap in Georgia – a state in which Biden has struggled in recent months amid concerns over the strength of his support amongst Black voters.
• Bloomberg notes: “[Trump] led [Biden] by only 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%, in the critical states needed to win the November election. That's the smallest gap since the poll began last October.”
• Bloomberg notes in accompanying analysis that their findings, “run counter to some recent national polls, which showed a worsening picture for Biden. The poll could turn out to be a statistical outlier,” a firm sign that pollsters are struggling to calibrate their polling to the new post-debate political reality.

Figure 1: Presidential Election Swing State Polling Average

Source: Washington Post

Figure 2: Presidential Election Swing State Polling

Source: Bloomberg News/Morning Consult