Donald Trump may be riding high as president, but one CNN analyst says the latest election forecasts could soon wipe the grin off his face.
During a lively Friday segment with anchor Erica Hill, CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten said Democrats appear poised to pull off major wins in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia, spelling potential trouble for Trump and his Republican allies.
“If [these races] are a test of Donald Trump, then Donald Trump can’t be too happy with what we’re seeing in the data right now,” Enten declared, pointing to fresh polling from all three battlegrounds. According to Enten, while Republicans insist that former State Representative Jack Ciattarelli is “closing the gap” in New Jersey, the numbers tell a different story. Democrat Rep. Mikie Sherrill, he said, “has a clear advantage – about six points.” That’s the tightest contest among the three, but still not enough to give the GOP much comfort
CNN: If Trump wins next week, all the signs were there. You can’t say you weren’t warned. pic.twitter.com/fA6JcOmRzB
— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) October 30, 2024
Over in Virginia, things look even bleaker for Trump’s camp. Enten revealed that Democratic frontrunner Abigail Spanberger is “way up there by double digits – up by 10 points” over Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears. And in New York City? The Democratic candidate, Zohran Mamdani, is “leading in surveys by a massive 16 points over former Governor Andrew Cuomo.” Mamdani’s advantage is even greater against Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, leaving little doubt about who’s in command of the city’s political pulse.
Enten summed it up bluntly: “At this point in time, to me it seems like the Democrats are most likely going to sweep all three of those races. That’s in part because of Donald Trump, but it’s also in part because especially in a place like Virginia, they have a much better liked candidate than the Republican candidate.”
Erica Hill pressed him on how rare such a Democratic sweep might be. Enten’s answer? Extremely. He explained that after combing through nearly a century of election data, “It has only happened five times in the last 90 years what seems like it’s going to happen this next Tuesday.” Those rare years were 1953, 1957, 1961, 1989, and 2017.
Even more striking, he said, “The five times that I mentioned that the Democrats swept all of those races, each and every time the following year, they won a majority in the US House of Representatives.” Enten concluded, “If Democrats sweep on Tuesday, it, in my opinion, is a very good sign, looking forward to 2026 and taking that majority back from Republicans.”
With early voting already underway—New York and New Jersey opening ballots last weekend, and Virginia beginning on September 19—the countdown to Election Day is officially on. Spanberger and Earle-Sears are not just fighting for votes, but also for history: one of them will become Virginia’s first female governor. As the final days tick down, the message from CNN’s data desk is clear: if Democrats win big, Donald Trump “can’t be too happy.”
