To the casual election observer, there’s a natural tendency to assume that when one political candidate rises in the polls, his or her opponent falls. While that’s often the case, it’s not always the case. The latter appears to be true in multiple respected national polls on the Trump-Harris race.
Kamala Harris’ rise in the polls isn’t due to a wave of voters abandoning Donald Trump, but rather, Democrats and Independents who were reluctant to vote for Joe Biden who are giving Harris a new look. Unfortunately, that new look is tightly controlled by the liberal lapdog media, who continue to all but hide Harris in witness-protection-like fashion — and she gleefully obliges.
Hence, Harris kicks off the Democratic National Convention on Monday after enjoying a remarkable run that’s seen her claim a lead over Trump in multiple national polls — albeit none of those leads substantial —and go toe-to-toe with the former president in a half-dozen states expected to determine the Electoral College winner.
We’re talking about voters who were never going to vote for Trump but were instead terrified of voting for cognitively-vacant Biden. Now that Joe’s been shown the door — removed in a veritable coup — it appears that the majority of Democrat voters are returning to give Harris and the party another sniff.
Here’s more:
But it’s been enough to rewrite the narrative of the race. What had been Mr. Trump’s election to lose now seems like a tossup with the edge, perhaps, to Ms. Harris. The RealClearPolitics average of polls gave her a 1.4-point lead.
Emerson College Polling’s July survey showed Mr. Trump with a 4-point lead over Mr. Biden. Its August survey put Ms. Harris up by 4 points nationally. Spencer Kimball, the poll’s executive director, said that includes shifts in voters under 30, over 70 and among women. And while Black voter support didn’t change, the share saying they are motivated to vote increased, Mr. Kimball said.
Ms. Harris’ favorability ratings have also risen and are now in positive territory, according to Morning Consult’s survey work. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is underwater.
More importantly for Ms. Harris, the trend line is good. a CBS News poll taken in mid-July, before Mr. Biden turned over the reins, had Mr. Trump leading Ms. Harris by 3 points. CBS’ poll two weeks later found her with a 1-point lead. And CBS’ latest poll on Sunday showed her up by 3 points.
CBS said the big change for Ms. Harris is a “surge in enthusiasm” from Democrats who increasingly say they’ll vote. CBS said voters are still trying to figure her out, though.
“Most voters think her views are similar, though not entirely the same, as Joe Biden’s,” CBS explained, adding: “And she’s somewhat — but not entirely — seen as connected to Biden’s economy.”
Which is why Harris is running just as fast as she can from Bidenomics, along with a growing list of other Biden policies. Democrats do that, you know. Run the country into the ground for four years, then turn around — with a straight face —and run away from the policies they espoused and the decisions they made without batting an eye.
More:
Fox News’ polling in July gave Trump a 1-point lead over Mr. Biden, and its August poll gives him a 1-point lead over Harris.
Michael McKenna, a pollster who worked in the Trump White House, said in recent months Tump had held a persistent lead in the polls, though nearly every one of those was within the margin of error. Now, he said, “We’ve got a situation where they appear to be tied.”
McKenna added:
Has something changed? Yes, something’s changed. Have the fundamentals of the race changed? Not really. We’re still in a race that’s probably going to be decided by four to five states, and 400,000 to 500,000 votes. You’re not seeing a deterioration of Trump’s numbers. What you’re seeing is a consolidation of Democrats’ numbers.
When I see numbers like those, the first thing I think about is the “T-word” — voter turnout. And setting aside election integrity concerns, it’s unnerving because the Democrat Party has historically been better at getting out the vote than the Republicans.
Finally, this from Morning Consult:
Harris leads Trump ahead of the DNC: Ahead of this week’s Democratic National Convention, Harris leads Trump, 48% to 44%, up 1 percentage point over the past week and tying a record high set earlier this month. Harris has not trailed Trump in a single daily tracking survey since we first updated this page with their head-to-head matchup in late July.
Harris popularity hits new high: More voters than not hold favorable opinions about Harris (50% to 45%), a record-high net favorability rating that keeps her above water for the fourth week running. Meanwhile, Trump’s net favorability improved to 5 points underwater, continuing an upward trend over the past two weeks.
Voters continue to hear mostly good things about Harris: For the fourth week running, voters remain more likely to say they heard something positive (43%) than negative (31%) about Harris by a double-digit margin. What voters hear about Trump, meanwhile, has trended slightly more positive over the past two weeks since dipping to 20 points underwater at the beginning of August.
Vance’s image improves: The past month has been a rough ride for GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who saw his net favorability rating fall from -1 to -13 during the rollout of his candidacy. But we’ve seen a significant improvement to his image over the past week, with voters now only 2 points more likely to have unfavorable than favorable views of him.
Walz treads water: More voters than not (39% to 36%) continue to have favorable views of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz after two weeks on the ticket, which is down slightly from the week prior (39% to 34%).
CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and MSNBC were gleefully unavailable for comment.
