Harry Enten, CNN’s senior political data reporter, on Friday said that Donald Trump “may finally get his great white whale” in this year’s presidential election.
“He could win the popular vote, which of course is something he would absolutely love to do,” said Enten, adding that the GOP nominee is “very much in a position” to do so after losing the popular vote in 2016 and 2020.
Enten, in a segment with CNN’s John Berman, pointed to some national polls of registered and likely voters showing Trump ahead of Democratic rival Kamala Harris and others showing the Harris leading the Republican.
The two candidates were tied among likely voters in a recent poll from The New York Times.
Trump could also make “history” if he wins the popular vote, as the most recent GOP nominee to do so was President George W. Bush in 2004, Enten said.
Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, was the last Republican nominee before him to win the popular vote, doing so in 1988.
Enten later flagged an aggregate of polling from Friday showing Harris up by 1 point against Trump.
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden had larger polling margins than Harris at this stage in their respective campaigns, according to Enten.
“The fact that Donald Trump has a legitimate shot of winning the popular vote is something I think a lot of folks, including in my line of work, really didn’t think could possibly happen when Donald Trump was running last time around,” Enten said.
He continued by pointing to a “potentially good sign” for Democrats, as the former president is doing “particularly well” in polls from heavily populated states like California, Florida, New York and Texas.
“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,” he said.
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