We’ve been saying for some time now that Kamala Harris’s honeymoon period in the polls would end, and for a while now, we’ve seen her lead shrink in the polling averages and some poor polling for Kamala in battleground states. But a new poll from the New York Times/Siena College shows Trump ahead nationally again. And you can bet the left is flipping out about it.
🇺🇲 National poll by NYT/Siena crosstabs
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 8, 2024
🟥 Trump: 48%
🟦 Harris: 47%
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Full Ballot
🟥 Trump: 47%
🟦 Harris: 45%
🟪 Oliver: 2%
🟩 Stein: 1%
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Crosstabs
• Biden 2020 voters: Harris 92-6%
• Trump 2020 voters: Trump 97-2%
• Did not vote in 2020: Trump 49-40%
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• Men:… pic.twitter.com/jtPBwxRIBq
"To me, the result is a bit surprising," writes Nate Cohn of the New York Times, before trying his best to quell panic from the left. "It’s the first lead for Mr. Trump in a major nonpartisan national survey in about a month. As a result, it’s worth being at least a little cautious about these findings, as there isn’t much confirmation from other polls."
Cohn then acknowledges what many of us hawkishly monitoring polls have noticed: there has been a dramatic decline in new polling recently.
That said, it wouldn’t be hard to explain if Vice President Harris’s support really has faded a bit in recent weeks. After all, she was benefiting from an ideal news environment: an uninterrupted month of glowing coverage from President Biden’s departure from the race in July to the Democratic convention in August. It’s possible she was riding a political sugar high; if so, it would make sense if she came off those highs in the two uneventful weeks since the convention.
There’s also a plausible reason the Times/Siena poll would be the first to capture a shift back toward Mr. Trump: There simply haven’t been many high-quality surveys fielded since the convention, when Ms. Harris was riding high. There was a scattering of online polls this week, but there hasn’t been a traditional high-quality survey with interviews conducted after Aug. 28.
But, even Cohn can't deny that things are looking better for Trump.
"There’s no way to know whether the Times/Siena poll is too favorable for Mr. Trump. We never know whether the polls are 'right' until the votes are counted," he writes. "But the poll nonetheless finds that he has significant advantages in this election — and they might just be enough to put him over the top."
Cohn also acknowledges that Trump has a clear advantage on the issues voters care about most. When asked to compare him with Kamala Harris on their top concerns, Trump leads by five points. Voters also see him as occupying a more balanced political position, with nearly half saying he’s not too far left or right, while a significant portion believes Harris is too far to the left.
On top of that, despite Kamala branding her candidacy as a "new way forward," Cohn says that Trump, not Kamala, is "seen as the change candidate in a nation that wants change."
While President Biden’s departure from the race lifted the spirits of many Democrats, the national mood still isn’t great. An overwhelming majority of voters still say that the economy is poor and that the nation is heading in the wrong direction. And a clear majority — 61 percent — of voters say they want the next president to bring a “major change” from Mr. Biden, compared with 34 percent who want “minor change” and 3 percent who don’t want change.
In the poll, only 40% of likely voters view Kamala Harris as representing "change," while 55% see her as offering "more of the same." In contrast, 61% of voters perceive Donald Trump as representing "change," with just 34% saying he embodies "more of the same."
Cohn tries hard to give Democrats hope, but there's no way to spin this poll as anything but bad news for Kamala Harris.
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