Two pollsters who accurately called the 2016 and 2020 elections say Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris is decelerating in battleground state polls, a loss in momentum that is paving the way for Republican Donald Trump to reach 296 electoral votes and victory in November, the New York Post reported.
Matt Towery of Georgia-based InsiderAdvantage and South Carolina-based Robert Cahaly of Trafalgar have Trump winning six of the seven battleground states that will decide the election.
Trafalgar has Trump with small leads in Wisconsin (1.1 points), Michigan (0.4), and Pennsylvania (2.1), while InsiderAdvantage has Trump with 1-point leads in North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona, and Trump-Harris in a virtual tie in Georgia.
Pollster Jim McLaughlin told Newsmax on Tuesday that polls showing Harris leading Trump are "under sampling Republicans and they're under sampling Trump voters." Towery told the Post that he and Cahaly "pick up some Trump votes that some of the other pollsters might not be able to get."
That methodology put the pair among the top 3 of accurate pollsters in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, he said.
Towery said that Harris' novelty has worn off.
"The momentum that we were seeing after the Democratic National Convention has sort of come to an end," Towery told the Post.
Further, Towery told the Post that if Trump shows a "realistic" version of himself in next week's presidential debate, "this could become a real turning point like the Carter-Reagan debate that basically sealed the deal" in 1980. Ronald Reagan won with 489 electoral votes and 50.7% of the popular vote over Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Cahaly told the Post that Harris has "the most to lose" and is in a "no-win situation" in next week's debate.