How exactly does the most unpopular vice president in the history of polling suddenly become popular? The easy answer to that is that when you replace a de facto corpse on the Democratic Party ticket, it's bound to get the party excited again. But it was entirely superficial. Kamala Harris was a weak candidate in 2020. She's proving once again to be a weak candidate in 2024 as it looks like she's starting to crash in the polls.
We always knew that she'd experience a honeymoon period, so it really wasn't a surprise that she suddenly took a lead in the polls. The problem was that her lead never came close to the polling heights of Joe Biden, whose victory hinged on less than 50,000 votes across three states in 2020, or Hillary Clinton, who lost in 2016. But the glory days of her polling boost appear to be in the past.
Before we get into the polls, I'd like to discuss Nate Silver's election projection model, which attempts to predict the outcome of the election by adjusting polls by accounting for various factors, such as pollster quality, voter type, and even convention bounces. I've mentioned it before, but today I want to point out that Harris peaked in his model in mid-August with a 56.7% chance of winning the Electoral College. Today, Donald Trump has a 58.2% chance of winning the Electoral College, and thus the election, while Harris has a 41.6% chance of winning.
#New winner model - Nate Silver
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) September 4, 2024
🔴 Trump 58% (Chance)
🔵 Harris 42% pic.twitter.com/B25GtMM9B6
Trump's odds have been inching up for days.
Latest @NateSilver538 forecast (9/3)
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 3, 2024
Chance of winning
🟥 Trump: 56.7% (highest since 7/31)
🟦 Harris: 43.0%
——
Swing States: chance of winning
Pennsylvania - 🔴 Trump 57-43%
Georgia - 🔴 Trump 64-36%
Arizona - 🔴 Trump 67-33%
North Carolina - 🔴 Trump 70-30%
Nevada - 🔴… https://t.co/QZjx9HVZ5n pic.twitter.com/p2hIdVZ2Gt
Why is this happening? It comes down to disappointing polling for her in two states.
"In addition to Pennsylvania, Michigan has become something of an issue for Harris," explains Silver. "National polls and polls of other swing states mostly decent for Harris, but erosion in PA/MI hurts a lot in the model."
Related: Does Kamala Harris Have a Pennsylvania Problem?
But the problem is also that her margin in those states is dropping.
In PA, our polling averages had Harris +1.8 pre-DNC, but it's now Harris +1.0. That's before any convention bounce adjustment, which is implemented at a later stage of the model.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 4, 2024
In MI, the polling average has fallen from Harris +3.1 pre-DNC to Harris +1.9 now.
As of this writing, Trump also has the lead in the political betting markets:
Trumps lead is up to 7% in Polymarket https://t.co/X95VbfTRZp pic.twitter.com/RASSSD6QGj
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) September 4, 2024
Even CNN sees warning signs for Kamala Harris.
CNN's David Chalian Warns Of 'Trouble Sign For Harris' As She Lags Behind Trump's 'Huge Numbers' With Key Demographic pic.twitter.com/Nos557lENn
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 4, 2024
But there's another factor that's likely to come into play more substantially in the polling. According to a new YouGov poll, Republican voters have once again overtaken the lead in enthusiasm.
There was a surge of enthusiasm for Harris post-Biden dropout, but that might have happened no matter what. Thought convention speech was good, but bypassing Shapiro beginning to look bad and they haven't really found a 2nd gear after Hot Brat Summer.https://t.co/SPS1OGKNw2
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 4, 2024
The enthusiasm gap between Republican and Democrat voters may never be as substantial as it was when Biden was the nominee, but if Republican enthusiasm is trending up, and Democrat enthusiasm is trending down, as the above graph implies, we're likely looking at what many predicted all along: that this race would reset to roughly the same state it was before the Biden-Trump debate.
