It was inevitable that Kamala Harris would see a bounce in the polls after she was undemocratically anointed the Democrats’ new presidential nominee. The polls did tighten, but not enough for Kamala to overtake Trump in the polling averages or even come close in the political betting markets.
We’ve been waiting anxiously for new matchup polling between Trump and Harris, and the latest Harvard-Harris CAPS poll has some devastating news for Kamala Harris. The poll shows Donald Trump leading Harris 52-48 with leaners, and 48-45 without. What’s interesting about these results is that Harris has only improved her position over Joe Biden's against Trump without leaners.
This is supposed to be Kamala's honeymoon period. pic.twitter.com/5DWtHaLPi2
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) July 31, 2024
As the Harvard-Harris CAPS poll notes, the race has indeed been reset to how it was before the infamous debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In fact, the new Trump-Harris poll is identical to the last Harvard-Harris CAPS poll at the end of June.
"Even the unsure voters are breaking toward Trump, at least somewhat,” notes Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air. "Trump holds Republicans to the ticket better than Harris holds her own party in both formulations. In fact, her 87% without leaners should be a red flag for the DNC, suggesting strongly that the party is not as sold on The Anointing as the media claims, even with the full-court press on Kamalot!"
The numbers with independents are also quite interesting. "Trump leads by six points without leaners -- and six points with leaners,” Ed writes. "One has to wonder whether the sample tilts a bit toward the Dems based on those results plus the party loyalty numbers above. If so, Trump's still scoring an outright majority over Harris, whose attractiveness as a candidate is at its zenith before she's forced to open her mouth about policy."
Related: Democrat Civil War Watch: Behind the Scenes, Dems Are Anxious About Kamala
There are other problems for Harris in this poll. Trump has a significant 12-point lead among men and is only slightly behind among women, 44% to 48%—a remarkable feat when matched against a woman candidate. Additionally, Trump garners an impressive 25% of the black vote and 44% of the Hispanic vote.
What may be causing this Trump Bump? The issue set clearly favors Republicans now. The top three issues for respondents in this survey when asked in an open-ended manner are inflation (37%), immigration (33%), and the economy and jobs (27%). When asked to specify which single issue impacts respondents the most, 45% chose inflation and 14% chose immigration. Harris' pet issue, abortion, comes in tied for third with crime at 10%. Except possibly on jobs, where the data has been surprisingly cheery this year, Harris has to play defense on the issues mattering most to voters in this cycle -- and Harris is not talented at defense.
So, it looks like just because the candidate has changed, the fundamentals shaping this race are no different. Kamala has taken the baton from Joe Biden and, with it, his record. And even before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, those fundamentals favored Trump tremendously. Voters still remember that things were better under Trump than they are now under the Harris-Biden administration, and that dynamic hasn’t changed just because Democrats swapped their candidates.
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