Fox News anchor Jesse Watters, bickering with "The Five" co-host Jessica Tarlov, insisted that Vice President Kamala Harris had a "terrible" week and that — far from receiving a post-convention bounce — was "down in all the battleground states."
“RealClear, check it out, right now, in the break, I’ll prove you wrong," he said, referring to the polling and political news aggregate RealClearPolitics, which actually shows Harris leading in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Less than hour after Watters made his claim, Fox News' Bret Baier reported on a post-convention poll by the network itself that showed Harris leading Trump in most of the Sun Belt battlegrounds as well. The poll, conducted August 23-26, shows Harris ahead of Trump by 2 points in Georgia and Nevada and 1 point in Arizona among registered voters, while Trump leads Harris by 1 point in North Carolina.
Previous Fox News surveys showed Biden trailing Trump by 5 to 6 points in those states. Harris' improvement is buttressed by 79% support from Black voters, a group Democrats feared might move in Trump's direction as Biden struggled to make headway against Trump. Trump still retains much better numbers among Black voters than he did in 2020, nearly tripling his support from 7% to 19%, but lost 6% of his support among white evangelical Christians.
Democratic candidates in down-ballot races hold an even wider lead than Harris, with Rep. Ruben Gallego leading Republican Kari Lake by 15 points in Arizona's U.S. Senate race. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, is also ahead of Republican Sam Brown by 14 points in her re-election bid.
