Jesse Scheckner
Donald Trump has the homefield advantage in Palm Beach County, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at new polling.
A survey of likely General Election voters in Palm Beach found Vice President Kamala Harris leading the former President 18 percentage points.
That’s higher than the 13-point margin by which President Joe Biden carried the county in 2020.
Democratic consultant Christian Ulvert’s firm, EDGE Communication, polled 1,630 Palm Beach voters online Aug. 26-29. He modeled the poll with a +8 Democratic turnout, with the makeup being 40% Democratic, 32% Republican and 28% no party affiliation (NPA).
The poll had a 2-point margin of error.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said they planned to vote for Harris compared to 38% for Trump and 6% who remained undecided.
That result, Ulvert wrote, “reaffirms that the 2022 collapse that saw Gov. (Ron) DeSantis carry the county by 3 points has been reversed.”
“The coalition of voters who are excited to look ahead rather than go backwards have come together and Democrats are well-positioned in the final stretch of the 2024 General Election,” he added.
The poll also found that for Sheriff, incumbent Democrat Ric Bradshaw is on track to trounce Republican Michael Gauger, his former second-in-command, with a 35-point lead.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they want to see Bradshaw, who skated through his Primary last month, serve as Palm Beach’s top cop for a sixth term. Just 24% said they’d rather have Gauger in the job.
The remaining 17% were undecided; but even if all of them voted for Gauger, it wouldn’t be enough to overcome Bradshaw’s lead.
The new polling numbers, released Wednesday, track with a survey EDGE commissioned from Plantation-based MDW Communications last month in Miami-Dade that found Harris with a 15-point lead among likely Nov. 5 voters.
That survey was similarly encouraging for several other Democrats, such as Sheriff candidate James Reyes, Clerk candidate Annette Taddeo, Tax Collector David Richardson and Supervisor of Elections candidate J.C. Planas, all of whom were found to hold large leads over their Republican opponents.
Statewide is a different matter. Several recent polls show Trump leading Harris by 4-7 points in Florida, where Republicans now hold a more than 1 million-voter advantage over Democrats.
2 comments
Michael K
September 4, 2024 at 12:42 pm
Vice President Harris is on a roll, while her old opponent is stuck in the past with the same old stale nasty playbook. We’re ready for a change.
Alexa is Biased
September 4, 2024 at 1:16 pm
Roughly 50%. It’s going to be close. The country is divided. Not everyone thinks she is the answer. Heck she won’t talk to anyone except Dana Bash and her teleprompter. Broward and Palm Beach County are full of Northeasterners that fled high taxes, crime, and bad politics. They don’t learn however by continuing to vote Demo. Thank God the rest of the state doesn’t think that way.