By EFE
28 Aug 2024, 17:26 PM EDT
A poll released Wednesday shows that in this year’s presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are tied in Miami-Dade, a strategic county in Florida that traditionally leans toward the Democratic Party.
The poll conducted by the Inquire firm, commissioned by Republican Commissioner Kevin Cabrera, reflects that in the general elections next November, both Harris and Trump account for 47% of voting intention in this county, the most populous in Florida.
The study, conducted on 500 likely voters between August 22 and 25, and with a margin of error of 4.5%, also reports that 6% are undecided.
The results are not good news for Miami-Dade Democrats, who have won the last eight presidential elections and have not seen a Republican presidential candidate win since 1988, when George H.W. Bush won the southern county with 55 percent of the vote.
The findings, however, are in line with recent trends in Miami-Dade County, where Democrats have seen their margins of victory shrink in recent election cycles and where the current state governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, actually carried the county when he won re-election in the 2022 election.
“Once a Democratic stronghold, Miami-Dade is no longer a guaranteed victory as our community embraces conservative values and rejects the failed Biden-Harris policies that are ruining our nation,” Cabrera, a staunch supporter of former President Trump (2017-2021), told the Miami Herald.
The poll, conducted at the end of the Democratic National Convention, which certified Harris as the party’s candidate, shows that the US vice president and the Republican have the same percentage (90%) of support among their party members.
However, Trump has the advantage among the unaffiliated, with 49% of voting intention in this group, compared to 41% for Harris.
Among all likely voters in Miami-Dade, the Democrat is viewed more favorably (49%) than unfavorably (45%), as is Trump, but by a smaller margin (48% to 46%).
The findings of the study released today differ from another released earlier this month by Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert, which showed a 14 percentage point difference in favor of Harris (54% to 40%) in Miami-Dade.
Still, the Florida Democratic Party is optimistic about Harris’ performance in the upcoming elections in view of the momentum generated by Harris’ entry into the race, following the withdrawal of the current US President, Joe Biden, who was seeking a second term, but his poor performance in the first debate led him to step aside.
“Voters reject extremism,” said Florida Democratic Party leader Nicki Fried on Tuesday during a conference call in which she noted that Trump is failing to gain ground in the polls.
According to the average of polls compiled by the website FiveThirtyEight, Harris leads Trump nationally by 3.4 percentage points.