CNN data guru says Trump has 'legitimate shot' at winning popular vote: May get his 'great white whale'

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten disclosed to viewers Friday that former President Trump could very well win the national popular vote in November, something that hasn’t happened to a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years.

Enten broke down the numbers after a New York Times/Siena College poll was released showing Trump tied with Vice President Kamala at 48% in the national popular vote.

"Everyone has been talking about this idea that Trump may win in the Electoral College, but Kamala Harris may win the popular vote, but Trump may finally get his great white whale."

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In addition to the tie in The Times poll, the data reporter noted how Wall Street Journal and CNBC polls have Trump ahead of Harris in the popular vote, while IPSOS and YouGov have Harris up in the same category, though each lead is still within the margin of error.

Enten’s point was that these all show a "very, very tight race" between the two candidates for the national popular vote.

"Fact is, Donald Trump is very much in a position – he could win the popular vote, which of course is something he would absolutely love to do," Enten said. 

He then compared the current popular vote polls to those conducted at the same point in the last two presidential elections. As his aggregate numbers indicated, Harris is +1 in polling averages currently, whereas President Biden was up +9 and Hillary Clinton +6 at the same point in the 2020 and 2016 races against Trump, respectively.

Trump lost the popular vote in both of those elections, despite winning the Electoral College against Clinton eight years ago. 

"So now Donald Trump‘s in a position he really hasn‘t been before at this point in the campaign, where he could truly compete, and we can truly say that the popular vote at this point is way too close to call," Enten said. 

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The reporter continued by noting how rare it has been in the modern political era for a GOP candidate to win the popular vote in a national election. As his display showed, it has only happened one time since 1988.

"I wanted to jump even further back in my time machine to get an understanding – ‘Hey, I haven’t heard about a Republican potentially winning the popular vote in a while.’ And it turns out a Republican winning the popular vote – it hasn‘t happened since 2004 and George W. Bush defeating John Kerry."

He continued, "And that‘s only the one time that it has happened – in fact, you have to go all the way back, all the way back to nineteen-hundred and eighty-eight to find another one when it was George W. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush winning the popular vote over Michael Dukakis."

Addressing CNN anchor John Berman, Enten summarized the data, saying, "So the fact that the polls right now are so close, John, 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."