Harris is Trending Positive. But...

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Kamala Harris trounced Donald Trump in their debate and now, with help from Trump and his runnning mate, JD Vance, she has a two-point edge over Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls and a three-point lead in 538’s average. And in some of the polls regarded as most reliable, she leads by more—4% according to ABC News and YouGov and 6 % according to Morning Consult.

Moreover, the percentage of voters who view her favorably now is equal to those who view her unfavorably. In July, the month President Biden handed the Democratic nomination to her, she was under water by 16 points. Trump is still under water by almost 10.

And she’s been raising gobs of money more than Trump and got endorsed by conservative Republicans Dick and Lynn Cheney and then by super-celebrity Taylor Swift, but not by the Teamsters. Swift’s endorsement produced a more than 400 percent increase in signups at the government’s voter registration site. Trump, after posting a fake video showing Swift endorsing him, erupted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” following her Harris endorsement.

All this is good news for Harris. The not-so-good news is that in all seven swing states where the election will be decided, the race is within the margin of error. And in all of them, Harris is running behind where Biden was in September 2020, when he ended up winning by tiny margins. Moreover, Trump still has sizable leads on who’s better at handling the issues voters care about most—20 points on the economy, 23 points on immigration and 6 on foreign policy. She has a 21 point lead on abortion and 9 on protecting democracy. And 45% say she’s too liberal.

https://www.postalley.org/2024/09/19/harris-is-trending-positive-but/

[displacedvermoter]

1. Morton Kondrake, Peggy Noonan and David Brooks

Too bad there wasn't an appropriate Jonah Goldberg or Ann Coulter observation.

[lees1975]

2. I'd say almost all of that is good news.

Trump appears to have lost a large segment of his marginal support, and some core base support. And yes, in the swing states, the polls are within the margin of error. But, what appears to have happened is that, because they got criticized the last couple of cycles for being off, in some cases too favorable to Trump, in others, too favorable to Biden, they have made some adjustments that damps her poll numbers down a bit because they might be wrong. And there's still a lot of data they're using left from when Biden was running. There are signs, in all of those swing states, that Democrats may get more votes than they counted on or than the pollsters said they would. Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania all have senate races in which the Democrat leads outside the margin of error, except Michigan, where Slotkin has about a 4 point lead. In North Carolina, the presence of Mark Robinson on the ballot is bound to drag down Republicans including Trump, who endorsed him, and that race is a dead heat. And I think the Georgia election board just knocked Trump's chances of winning down a few points there.

And then, there's abortion rights referendums on the ballot in Arizona, Florida, Montana and Nevada, states where Democrats are on the ballot at or near the top.

Harris' favorability rating is a huge indicator. She's moved the needle 16 points, a record for recent elections. For Trump the needle is moving, down, not up, and for Vance, well, that's an anchor weight dragging Trump down.

And from the perspective of political impact, you can't script things like the lies they've told, and have had exposed, against the people of Springfield, Ohio. That's going to hurt big. We have yet to see the effects of over 300 Republican endorsements, which is also huge.