Kamala Harris cheering at rally – Courtesy: Shutterstock — lev radin
According to polls, former president Donald Trump may lose Florida in 2024. This is “extremely alarming,” according to the Florida Republican Party.
The Florida GOP chairman, Evan Power, responded to Newsweek’s August 13 story about a poll that indicated Florida was not a given for Trump with a fundraising email titled “Donald Trump at Risk of Losing Florida, Poll Suggests.”
In the email, Power stated, “This headline is extremely alarming,” as seen in a screenshot that Republican candidate for mayor of Fort Lauderdale Chris Nelson put on X, formerly Twitter.
“My fellow conservatives, it is our responsibility to make sure that Donald Trump wins landslide victories in Florida in November. Such news adds another layer of difficulty to our work, but we are prepared to halt Harris’s momentum and reclaim Donald Trump’s significant lead.”
We have emailed Power, the Florida GOP, and the Trump campaign for comments.
Formerly a swing state, Florida has recently turned into a stronghold for conservatism. Both in 2016 and 2020, Trump won the state, and in 2022, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis easily won reelection. Republicans have one million more registered voters in the state than Democrats do.
But according to new surveys, President Joe Biden’s sizable advantage in the state appears to be eroding since he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his position atop the Democratic ticket and resigned from his own campaign. This coming week, at the party convention, she is expected to accept the Democratic candidacy.
Details concerning a USA Today/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV survey that revealed Trump was trailing Harris by just five percentage points, 47 percent to 42 percent, were revealed in Newsweek’s report on August 13. The survey, which involved 500 probable voters, was done between August 7 and August 11 and had a 4.4-point margin of error.
“What was an easy drive through the Sunshine State is drive with caution,” Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos said to USA Today. She’s “still the underdog, but she’s a little bit closer than people might expect,” he stated.
Prior surveys taken following Biden’s withdrawal from the contest on July 21 placed Trump ahead of Harris in Florida by a margin of six to eight points.
Even though Trump is still in the lead, several recent surveys indicate that his margin in Florida has narrowed even more, raising the possibility that the state may be very close to election in November.
In a survey released on August 10 and 11, Florida Atlantic University Political Communication, Public Opinion Research Lab (PolCom Lab), and Mainstreet Research USA indicated that Trump was trailing Harris in Florida by just 3 points.
“The growing distance between Trump and Harris is in line with the closing we have witnessed in other states,” political science professor and PolCom Lab co-director Kevin Wagner stated. “If this trend holds, we may see a competitive race in Florida.”
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