cnn's senior political writer and analyst harry enten joins us now.do the polls tell us about when presidential candidate voters trust more? >> there was an interesting "new york times" college poll done in three important swing states -- arizona, maine, and north carolina. what did it show among those voters who aren't choosing at this point? they overwhelmably preferred joe biden, 49% to donald trump 31% to pick the next supreme court justice. i should point out this poll was taken before the death of route bader ginsburg, but it's still a good starting point for joe biden. >> look, this to me is rather interesting. there's all that talk in 2016 about how donald trump really benefited from the idea he could nominate the next supreme court justice. but look at our last cnn poll, and what do you see for this year? is more biden supporters say it's more important. so we see a real flip. you really can't compare the senate landscapes. the way we see it is look at the number of competitive races where there were democratic senators. there were five in st

joining me now, cnn senior politics writer and analyst, harry enten. mr. ith us this morning. there are signs of tightening in the polls this morning, although i suppose it depends on what date you are saying we are tightening from. >> yeah, i would say that's exactly right. i mean, you can take a look at the national polling averages now, take a look at where they were two months ago, and then take a look at where they were four months ago. and what you see, essentially, is that back in july, joe biden had about a ten-point lead. he was at 50%, the president was at 40%. now biden is still at that 50% mark, but trump has climbed back to 43%. but what's key, if you look back at may, we're not really seeing a lot of change from the polls in may. of course, you'll recall, that's when george floyd was killed in minneapolis. and it did seem that there was an initial boost or at least a degradation of trump support. but it does seem he's climbed back up after that. >> i'm struck by the fact that you also see joe biden consistently at that 50% mark or higher, at 5

joining us now, cnn's senior political writer and analyst, harry enten.d a lot of people on both sides say, this is going to help one side or the other. what do we know? let's start by looking at a group of voters that matter more than anybody, swing voters. what do they say? >> right. so take a look at this. this is persuadable voters, those who say they might change their mind or those who say they were undecided in key swing states like arizona, may, and north carolina. this poll was just taken a week ago, and what do we see? who do they believe is better to pick the next supreme court nominee? it's joe biden by an overwhelming margin. 49% to 31%. so among that group, we're seeing that they prefer biden to trump to pick the next supreme court nominee. and obviously, now, that's an issue that's much more in the news than it was a week ago. >> and obviously people are looking at history here when they're making their assumptions. and there is the assumption backed up by some fact that the supreme court process helped donald trump in 2016, to get elected

. >>> harry enten, the wizard of odds, comes to join us now to give you a statistical reality of whatlong argued on this show, and by we, i mean me, not harry, is a tighter race than the polls were suggesting. two reasons, one, popular vote doesn't matter. it's about the states that matter and the counties that matter and the dynamics that affect the same. yes, young harry, i'm glad you agree. state of play in the swing states. continue. >> yeah, i mean, look, putting aside your giant ego, let's just take a look at the polls right now in the swing states versus nationally, okay? and i think this tells the story, which is nationally what you see is that joe biden is ahead by 8 percentage points, but if you look at the swing states, all of them, the six closest states from 2016, biden's lead is less, but he is still up in them, chris. he's still up in them. >> almost within the margin of error. in all of them. and most of all, florida, last time you came on the show, you had florida somewhere around 8 to 12 for biden and i said that sounds crazy. and you said, boy, if he's up that much

tightens -- at least appears to tight anne cording to our cnn senior political writer and analyst harry entenme of the battlegrounds. harry, we have this new post-convention poll out today. does it show much of a bounce out of the conventions? >> oh, my god. you could set this clock, it's so steady, this race is so, so steady. ugov had two polls out today, one nationally, one from the state of wisconsin and you can see it on your tv screen right now. the race in both of those states is the same exact as it was before the conventions. with biden up 10 nationally and up 6 in the swing state of wisconsin. >> it's all about the swing states, right? just how tight is this race in reality? >> yeah, so this is rather important, right? so i took an average of all the closest, five closest swing states that trump won in 2016 as well as the average nationally and what you see is in each of those five closest swing states biden is ahead but it's closer than it is nationally and biden of course needs to win at least two if not three of these swing states. so the race is closer in the swing states than it

harry enten will be along for the ride. thank you very much.ight back. >> i'll be riding shotgun with you. >> yay. we'll be back. with sofi it's possible to get them paid off and start new. ♪ to show up... ...for the sweet. the hectic. the tender. the tense. and the fiery. but for many, migraine keeps them... ...from saying... ..."i am here." we aim to change that... ...with... ...aimovig, a preventive treatment... ... for migraine in adults. one dose... ...once a month... ...is proven to reduce monthly migraine days. for some, by half or more. don't take aimovig if you're allergic to it. allergic reactions like rash or swelling can happen hours to days after use. severe constipation can happen. sometimes with serious complications. high blood pressure can happen or worsen with aimovig. common side effects include injection site reactions and constipation. it doesn't matter what each day brings. so long as you can say... ... i am here. aim... ...to be there more. talk to your doctor about aimovig. like the "visit a doctor anywhere our rv takes

harry enten will be along for the ride. thank you very much.ack. >> i'll be riding shotgun with you. >> yeah. we'll be back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ we have different needs.y. ♪ but one thing we share is wanting to make our lives the best they can be. if you have medicare and medicaid, a dual complete plan from unitedhealthcare can help. giving you more benefits. at no extra cost. and a promise to be there for you. whatever your story may be. to learn more, call or go online. dual complete from unitedhealthcare. >>> let's bring in d. lemon. i watched him wrestling with his tie like it was a python. >> are you kidding me? >> still wrestling. >> you're, like, three minutes early. >> well, i owed you some time. >> you did that on purpose. what did i do to you? >> only good things. >> what did i do to you? >> only good things. you look good. >> thank you, so do you. >> believe me, the less they see that tie, the better. i paid a lot of money for this. as long as it stays in place. so john bolton is on -- >> i was just going to say i saw, that was a great interview

you know, if you talk to a lot of folks who do statistical analysis, and our harry enten is great atthe feeling is biden's got to win by more than 4.5% in the popular vote. so he can -- you know, if a democrat can win the popular vote by one or two points and the presidency is still likely to go to the republicans. that's not sustainable because it violates that fundamental premise and promise of one person, one vote. this was pushed through, as a compromise, in the constitution, at the last minute. james madison hated it. wanted to redo it. we've had constitutional amendments pushed before. at the very least, it shouldn't be winner take all. there is a great book on this. but this is a real problem. we cannot further fray our bonds that connect us. and making people feel like their vote doesn't count for something as powerful and impactful as the presidency is a recipe for disaster. >> the least populous places really make all the policies and decide who the president of the united states should be, over the most of the people, the majority. thank you, john avlon. i will see you soo

. >> cnn's senior political writer and analyst harry enten joining me now.do polls tell us about whether voters support a supreme court vote on a nominee? >> let's just take a look at the numbers. i think they're a little bit surprising. take a look here. better to pick a supreme court nominee among persuadable voters in key swing states that "the new york times" recently polled. what you see is joe biden is actually ahead in these swing states among those who say he's better to pick by a 49% to 31% margin. let's also look at motivation. is this a motivating factor for each side. what's so important is take a look at 2020 compared to 2016, and what do you see? you see that right now among biden supporters in 2020, who say that it's extremely important, nominees for the supreme court to their vote, it's actually more important to biden supporters than it was to trump supporters. that's a big switch from 2016, when we saw that trump supporters were actually more motivated by a supreme court pick. now, of course, trump says they're going to put forth the nomina

let me bring in our polling guru harry enten. you wrote this weekend how this isn't looking like 2016. explain? >> reporter: look, ana, the quick sort of lay of the land. look at the national polls now what do you see? joe biden is out in front. leading the president of the united states, donald trump, 50% to 43%. compared to four years ago? you saw hillary clinton only a two-point lead. not only that, not anywhere close to 50%. it goes even deeper than that. not just horse race numbers but favorable ratings at this particular time in mid-september. joe biden favorable rating above unfavorable. 49%s to 46%. hillary clinton at this point favorable far below unfavorable. majority of voters didn't like her. plurality do, in fact, like joe biden. >> i'm sure you've heard afreud to admit who they like to pollsters. silent majority. ? what do you say? >> i don't see it. potentially true. one reason i don't see it, look, there are multiple ways to contact polls. right? the live interview telephone polls that cnn does. some people ask th

harry enten has raised some numbers here that say that 59% of biden voters saying appointing next supremert justice is important in their vote, just 51% of trump voters. and among those that are persuadable voters right now, and there aren't that many left, they prefer joe biden. they want joe biden to pick the next nominee by 49 to 31%. so it isn't clear what the politics are. we don't know, and obviously, not much has changed the politics of this race for months. >> i agree with that. and that's why i said, i think there's a lot of good politics on the democratic side right now for people who might be softly supporting joe biden. and then they say, hey, look at the stakes here on naming a supreme court justice, if it comes to that. so i totally agree with that. i just mean that for an incumbent president who is down in the polls and who would love nothing more than to change the focus away from handling the coronavirus, there's nothing better than a fight about social activism and the supreme court were him, at this juncture. it doesn't mean that it doesn't help democrats. but the large