Donald Trump has the potential to break a 20-year record, according to an election analyst. Harry Enten, a political commentator on CNN, has claimed this after analyzing the political data on CNN News Central and even shared that the former President is one notch away from making history. On Friday, October 25, the polls analyst shared that Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are tied for the popular vote ; Enten claimed that if Trump wins the popular vote next month, then he may just end up creating history in America.
BREAKING: Trump is leading the popular vote for the first time in his political career, according to RCP. pic.twitter.com/yu54XlTCcT
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) October 26, 2024
“He could make history—not only for Donald Trump but for a Republican candidate as well,” Enten predicted. Explaining why he believes in this, the analyst said, “You can dig down into the state-level polling and see that Donald Trump is doing particularly well in California, Florida, New York, and Texas.”
And Trump has always done better than the polls predict 😎
— Mason White ‘91 (@MasonWhite_X) October 26, 2024
According to Newsweek , Enten then continued about the popular votes, “Of course, none of these states are really on the board at this point, so Donald Trump may end up gaining in the national popular vote polls, but actually he’s wasting votes, which could, in fact, lead to a case where Kamala Harris could sneak by in the Electoral College by sweeping those Great Lake battleground states, which at this point, are way too close to call.” Enten also said that no Republican presidential candidate has won the popular vote since George W. Bush. Bush was successful in his 2004 reelection bid against the Democratic opponent Senator John Kerry.
There’s a real shot Trump may get his great white whale: winning the popular vote. Polls show the race nationally is basically even as Trump runs far ahead of where he polled in 2016 or 2020. He’d be the 1st Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years & only 2nd in 36 years. pic.twitter.com/Pp4LJPwUZe
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 25, 2024
According to Newsweek , the popular vote isn’t the deciding factor of the winner of the presidential election. The Electoral College system counts each state’s electoral votes until one hits the 270 threshold. But the popular vote still holds significance as the ex-president did not win the mandate in the 2016 and 2020 polls.
The 60th quadrennial presidential election is set to take place on November 5 this year, and several media houses have conducted their own exit polls to gauge the popularity of each candidate in the political scenario. According to an ABC News /Ipsos poll, Harris may win with flying colors as she is predicted to get 51% of voter support compared to Trump’s 48%. The polls were conducted by ABC between October 4 to 8 and surveyed 2,631 U.S. adults.
In another poll conducted by CNBC , Trump is ahead of Harris by 48 to 46% respectively. This survey was conducted between October 15 and 19 with 1,000 voters nationwide; the poll by CNBC has an error margin of 3.1%. While the Wall Street Journal predicted Trump as the winner, the New York Times /Sienna College called it a tie this time between the Democrat and Republican nominees. Nonetheless, if Enten’s observations prove right, then American politics is set to witness a historic election this time around.