CNN’s senior political data reporter Harry Enten on Friday said that Donald Trump “may finally get his great white whale” in this year’s election.
“He could win the popular vote, which of course is something he would absolutely love to do,” said Enten, who added 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 national polls of registered and likely voters showing Trump ahead of Kamala Harris while others show the vice president leading the GOP nominee.
The two are tied among registered and likely voters in a recent poll by The New York Times.
Trump could also make “history” if he wins the popular vote as the last GOP nominee to do so was President George Bush in 2004, Enten said.
His father, President George H.W. Bush, was the last Republican nominee before him to win the popular vote in 1988.
Enten later flagged an aggregate of polling from Friday showing Harris up by one point against Trump.
Both Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden fared several points better at the same point in their respective elections, according to Enten’s figure.
“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” polling-wise in California, Florida, New York and Texas.
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“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.