The early exit polls out of the must-win (for Trump) swing state of Georgia look good for the former president.
Most importantly, the NBC exit poll shows Donald Trump winning independent voters by +11 points, 54 to 43 percent (more on this below).
Fox News is reporting that Trump and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris tied in the early vote 49-49 percent. This is also good news for Trump as Republicans tend to win the Election Day vote.
Per Fox, Kamala is also running eight points behind the support Joe Biden had with the state’s all-important black vote four years ago. Among black men specifically, she is running 13 points behind Biden’s 2020 support.
The best news for Trump is that CNN’s exit poll also shows Trump winning Georgia independents by 11 points.
Here’s the best news (with the caveat that early exit polls tend to evolve through the night as more voters are polled)… In 2020, Biden won independents in Georgia by nine points. If these early exit poll numbers hold, that is a 20(!)-point swing toward Trump with Georgia independents.
In the RealClearPolitics average poll of Georgia polls, Trump led the state by just 1.3 points.
Something we will be looking at as the night wears on and actual results come in is what the results look like compared to the polling. Although it’s still early, it looks as though Trump will way overperform the polling in Florida. That overperformance might be unique to that state. But if we see Trump winning states by wider margins than the polls showed, even if it’s just by a point or two, that could mean he has a very good night and could potentially win all seven swing states — and the election.
We will be looking closely at New Hampshire and Virginia, as well. If those blue states are close, as Team Trump expects, that will also tell us the pollsters missed a segment of Trump supporters, which could be good news as we roar through the states tonight.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.