It has been just over a week since the Trump/Harris debate.
This should be enough time to evaluate any effects that the debate may have had on the arc of the 2024 Presidential race.
It is difficult to detect any major shifts in the race toward either candidate.
Most polls show a small shift toward Harris. A few others show that Trump continues to enjoy a small advantage.
Harris was +1.1 over Trump right before the debate in the RealClear Politics poll national average. She is currently +1.9 points.
However, Trump and Harris are tied in the battleground state average.
The candidates are generally separated by a point or less in all of these state polls.
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| Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024/battleground-states |
There are only two things I know for sure in looking at the recent polling.
1. Kamala Harris has infused the Democrats with new energy and life in the campaign that they did not have with Biden on the ticket.
This is clearly shown in this graph of the RCP national poll averages over the last six months.
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| Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris |
2. Trump is polling better right now with almost all demographic groups than he did in either 2016 or 2020.
This chart comparing 2016 and 2020 polls in various states compared to 2024 in the RealClear politics average shows that.
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| Credit: https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1836096233598787683 |
If you put both of these together it points to an extraordinarily tight race that could go either way depending on the votes in a couple of states.
In fact, the most likely outcome in my mind is that the final result will be determined by a factor that is not even in play in the race right now. An external event? A major faux pax by one of the candidates? A new revelation involving one of them?
The two most recent national popular votes favorable to Trump are the Atlas Intel poll showing Trump +3 and Rasmussen +2.
Atlas Intel was rated the most accurate pollster in 2020. Trafalgar was second and Rasmussen was third.
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| Credit: https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1835148869849448885 |
Trafalgar appears to only be polling the battleground states in 2024 thus far.
It has Trump up by about 2 points in both Pennsylvania and Georgia in polls released this week.
Trafalgar show similar leads for Harris in Nevada and Wisconsin.
The two best national polls for Kamala Harris have her +6 with Morning Consult and +4 with ABC News/Ipsos.
However, it also has to be kept in mind that Joe Biden won the popular vote by 4.5 points nationally but barely won the electoral college. He won several critical swing states by the slightest of margins. It should also be remembered that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 points over Trump in 2016.
In 2020, Biden won Arizona by 11,000 votes, Georgia by 12,000 votes and Wisconsin by 21,000 votes. Less than 50,000 votes in those states decided the election in 2020 despite the national popular vote margin of over 4 points. If Biden's margin of 1.2% in Pennsylvania, on top of turning those three other states, had gone the other way, Trump would have had a comfortable victory.
This suggests that Harris needs to be polling at +4 points or better nationally to be considered the favorite in this election. If Trump can keep her margin below +2 points he will be favored.
A Fox News Poll released on Wednesday shows that dynamic in action. Harris is up +2 nationally but trails Trump in the critical battleground states by 2. That scenario favors Trump in the electoral college vote. However. Trump led by +1 overall in that poll in August.
A New York Times/Siena poll released yesterday has the race tied.
Any way you look at it, this race promises to be as close as 2016 and 2020 were.
What does Trump have going for him?
The Atlas Intel poll shows that Trump is the voter's choice when asked who they trusted more on various issues.
Most of the big issues has Trump with double digit leads in trust.
Surprisingly, based on the media narrative on abortion, Harris only has a 2 point advantage on reproductive rights in the Atlas Intel poll.
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| Credit: https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1835078306464776609 |
Based on these results, why isn't Trump running away with the election?
It clearly comes down to Trump's personality, demeanor and likeability.
However, I was surprised that the Atlas Intel poll showed that there was not much difference in favorability issues between the two.
Kamala Harris has a net favorability of -2.
Donald Trump is at -5.
However, Joe Biden is at -14
Tim Walz is -15 and J.D. Vance -13.
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| Favorability Ratings (Green positive, Red negative) Source: https://www.atlasintel.org/poll/usa-national-2024-09-14 |
The Fox News poll also has Harris at -2 in net favorability. Trump is -8 in that poll.
The New York Times/Siena poll has Harris at -1 and Trump at -4 in net favorability.
What does Kamala have going for her?
The less people know about her the better it seems to be,
Her age is also helping her against Trump whereas this was a huge negative for Biden.
There is a reason that her campaign is doing all they can to avoid interviews and press conferences.
I would do the same if I was running her campaign.
The problem for Harris is that there are a lot of video and other evidence about her past positions and how extreme her California values have been.
The challenge for the Trump campaign is to expose who Kamala Harris really is without the benefit of the media who are doing all they can to help her win.
A recent Gallup poll seems to suggest that the more voters find out about Kamala Harris the more they do not like her.
Harris got a lot of favorable media attention right after she replaced Biden which gave her an immediate boost in her favorability rating compared to what it had been as Vice President.
However, a Gallup poll just released this week shows that Trump is being looked at more favorably over the last month and Harris is being look at more unfavorably.
Gallup has Trump's net favorability at -7. However, that is a 7 point improvement compared to August.
Kamala Harris is actually viewed less favorably than Trump right now in the Gallup poll. She is at -10 but has lost 8 points in a month.
What really stands out to me in the Gallup data is that Kamala Harris has a -25 net favorability rating with Independents! Trump is -9 with that group.
What is also interesting about the overall favorability scores of Trump with the Atlas Intel (-5) Gallup (-7) Fox (-8) and NYT?Siena (-4) polls is comparing those scores to when he was on this score in 2016 and 2020,
In 2016, Trump's favorability rating was -21 in polls (RCP average) right before the election when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
In 2020, Trump was -13 (RCP average) when he lost to Joe Biden.
It may be hard for some to believe but Trump actually has higher net favorability scores now than at almost any time since he first entered the political arena in 2016.
Yes, Trump is still in negative territory, but so is almost every other national political figure in the United States.
In the end, polls are just polls.
However, the real polls have already opened in Pennsylvania for early mail-in voting.
Many other states will soon follow with either mail-in or early in person voting over the next month.
An important metric this year will be to compare early voting trends based on party affiliation.
Will Democrats be able to attain the same number of mail-in ballots it did in 2020?
To what extent will Republicans be able to close the early voting gap now that the GOP is advising its supporters to vote early? Can they also do that without cannibalizing their election day vote advantage?
The next 46 days promise to be very interesting.
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