Could we see a Trump November Surprise?

If Trump closes with another battleground state surge, 2024 will be a blowout.

Improbable? As of Oct. 20, Trump already held leads in all seven battleground states. And in 2020 and 2016, he closed with substantial surges in these seven states. If he only partially replicates his prior performances, it won’t matter what happens elsewhere.

Seven battleground states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) will decide 2024’s presidential outcome — just like they did in 2020 and 2016.

In 2016, Trump won six of them and came quite close in the seventh; in 2020, Biden won six of them. In the last two elections, the margins of victory were relatively small; the conventional assumption is that the margins will again be very small.

However, while the seven states’ pivotal aspect remains clear, current and past trends raise the possibility that their margins may not be so close this time. Those coinciding trends are Trump’s current polling leads and his battleground state closing surges in the last two elections.

According to Real Clear Politics’ Oct. 20 averages of battleground state polling, Trump led in each of the seven states by margins ranging from 0.2 percentage points in Wisconsin to 1.8 percentage points in Georgia. As small as those margins are, Trump was substantially ahead of where he was on the same date in 2020 and 2016. In both previous elections, he trailed in each of the battleground states, in some cases by several points.

And in each of the last two elections, Trump surged in those states at the end. Both times, his popular vote percentages in these states made substantial jumps from where his polling had been on Oct. 20.

Over the last two presidential elections, the record for Trump’s battleground state surge is 14 for 14. In 2020 his overall average improvement was 3.2 percentage points. If that were applied to today’s polling, Trump's victory margin across all seven states would range from 2.7 percentage points in Georgia to 5.9 percentage points in Wisconsin. He would win them all comfortably.

In 2016, Trump's surge in the seven battlegrounds was 7.2 percentage points. If that were applied to this year's polling numbers, he would win all seven states. but by margins wide enough to shock everyone.

The counterargument is that Trump has already peaked — that his surge is already baked into the numbers. But if we assume that Trump has already hit his ceiling of support, that implies that Harris has hit her floor. There are many reasons to believe she has not.

One is Harris’ fall in the national polls. As of Oct. 24, she was trailing in three of the last four national polls, and her lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average had fallen to an insignificant 0.3 percentage points.

Another is Harris’s high unfavorable rating prior to becoming the Democrats’ nominee. On Oct. 24, Real Clear Politics showed Harris had a net unfavorable rating of 2.3 percentage points. As recently as July 13, it was a negative 16.4 percentage points.

Harris’s sharp rise has been fueled by Democrats' relief over not nominating Joe Biden, the novelty of her candidacy, and the lack of scrutiny of her record. These factors could be wearing off — and they could wear off even further in the campaign’s final weeks.

There is also a support dynamic that could assert itself. If Harris continues to fall in the polls, her supporters could decide to not vote, believing that she is likely to lose. In contrast to Trump, whose supporters have voted in five national contests (three national primaries and two general elections), Harris has no proven base of support outside of California. She has never run a national race in her own right.

The point here is that, should professed but unproven Harris supporters fail to turn out, then Trump's percentage will rise, even if Trump he doesn't gain supporters.

If a Trump surge materializes for a third time, election night could be over quite early. Trump needs to flip just 35 electoral votes to win. Harris has a realistic shot of flipping only North Carolina from Trump. Should she fail to do so, the contest will be on her turf for the rest of the night.

Trump victories in North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania could end the whole thing. Assuming he holds North Carolina, even if Trump loses Georgia and Pennsylvania, he could get to victory by winning Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada (a combined 42 electoral votes). And that doesn’t include the wildcard that Virginia could surprisingly flip over to him.

Today’s poll trend is already ugly for Harris: Yesterday, her lead in the Real Clear Politics’ national polling average was down to just 0.2 percentage points1. Past Trump trends could make it even uglier. And Trump doesn’t need the full weight of his past trends to make that happen.

J.T. Young is the author of the upcoming book, “Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left” and has over three decades of experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, and the White House Office of Management and budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.