Outside the Beltway

Good Polling for Harris

But it is all still close.

Steven L. Taylor
35

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NBC News reports: Poll: Newly popular Harris builds momentum, challenging Trump for the mantle of change.

A double-digit increase in popularity, rising Democratic enthusiasm and an early edge for representing “change” have vaulted Vice President Kamala Harris forward and reshuffled the 2024 presidential contest, according to a new national NBC News poll.

With just over six weeks until Election Day, the poll finds Harris with a 5-point lead over former President Donald Trump among registered voters, 49% to 44%.

[…]

A double-digit increase in popularity, rising Democratic enthusiasm and an early edge for representing “change” have vaulted Vice President Kamala Harris forward and reshuffled the 2024 presidential contest, according to a new national NBC News poll.

With just over six weeks until Election Day, the poll finds Harris with a 5-point lead over former President Donald Trump among registered voters, 49% to 44%. 

[…]

In an expanded ballot with third-party candidates, Harris leads Trump by 6 points, 47% to 41% — with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 2%, Jill Stein at 2% and Libertarian Chase Oliver at 1%. (Respondents were only able to pick from the major third-party candidates who will actually appear on the ballot in their states.)

Both ways of testing the race represent a change from July’s poll, when Trump was narrowly ahead of Biden by 2 points on the head-to-head ballot test and by 3 points on the expanded ballot test. The September results are the Democratic ticket’s best performance in the poll since the summer of 2023.

Via The Daily Beast: Kamala Harris Has Biggest Favorability Jump Since George W. Bush After 9/11.

Via CBS: Harris shows some gains and economic views brighten a bit — CBS News poll.

Plus from. late last week:

Meanwhile, via The Hill: More than 700 high-ranking national security officials endorse Harris.

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35 responses to “Good Polling for Harris”

  1. Lounsbury Avatar
    Lounsbury

    Eyes on the prize. The Swing states. Eyes on the prize.

    Madame Harris is proving surprisingly good, greatly “mis-underestimated” (thankfully perhaps?) – the Democrats (and USA in general) perhaps should have more ‘coronations’ and less of the ridiculously ineffective “vetting” by skewed pseudo-democratic primaries.

    Keep the Orange Cretin out of presidency and the whole world shall be modestly better off.

    19
  2. Paine Avatar
    Paine

    Thank god for the EC otherwise all we would hear about is polling from a handful of states.

    1
  3. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    I know it’s petty but CBS is using an eight year old photo of Trump. Is that a choice or CBS policy to only use an Official Photo?

    6
  4. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    This is exactly why Lindsey Graham’s interference in Nebraska is so dangerous. Switching just that one vote, based on this polling data, would send the results to the House.

    It should not be this close.

    15
  5. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    For us or against us, I just don’t have much faith in polls this year.

    2
  6. SKI Avatar
    SKI

    And then right on cue this morning, the NYT blasts out an email with the subject: “Donald Trump has pulled ahead of Kamala Harris in Arizona and is leading in tight races in Georgia and North Carolina, a Times/Siena poll shows.“

    5
  7. Lounsbury Avatar
    Lounsbury

    @MarkedMan: What you should have is a wise wariness of the actual meaning of point percentages in a probabilistic analysis – which one would profitably not understand as “predictions” in a point sense but rather a possible distriubtion of outcomes. This is very difficult for our brains which are frankly not well wired for such, being simpley overgrown chimps as we are – but one should force oneself to try to think in this direction.

    One’s odds are improving right now but “up 5 pts” is actually a probabilistic cone and this is in reality knife-edge, knifier edge than it should be perhaps and knifier edge than desirable and knifier edge than even Madame Clinton.

    But at least the dynamic is better and Madame Harris is showing herself to have a certain sense of the popular retail that l’éminance grise never had.

    I do hope that the pressure on Trump who has never show great skill under real pressure generates more error that continues the slow acid bath erosion. Every molecule of vote eroded away counts.

    @SKI: And?
    Their poll says what it says.
    Be glad for the motivation and glad that there is this to avoid complacency. It is merely reality in a tight race that polls, being not Future Predicators but displaying most likley range of probabilities, in such a tight race will bounce around.

    8
  8. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Then there is this:

    New York Times/Siena Sunbelt Polls

    * Arizona: Trump 50-45% Over Harris, Gallego by 6 Leads Lake, Georgia: Trump 49-45% Over
    Harris, North Carolina: Trump 49%, Harris 47%, Stein 10 points ahead of Robinson

    * Trump Trusted More by Voters across AZ, GA, NC by 12-14 points on Top Issue, Economy

    * Harris Trusted More by Voters across AZ, GA, NC by 9-13 points on Abortion

    * Voters Evenly Split on Which Candidate Better on Democracy

    Don’t get too excited yet.

    6
  9. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Speaking of voting:

    Department won’t provide election security after sheriff’s posts about Harris yard signs

    A local Ohio elections board says the county sheriff’s department will not be used for election security following a social media post by the sheriff saying people with Kamala Harris yard signs should have their addresses recorded so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if the Democratic vice president wins the November election.

    In a statement on the Portage County Democrats’ Facebook page, county board of elections chair Randi Clites said members voted 3-1 Friday to remove the sheriff’s department from providing security during in-person absentee voting.

    Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski posted a screenshot of a Fox News segment criticizing President Joe Biden and Harris over immigration. Likening people in the U.S. illegally to “human locusts,” he suggested recording addresses of people with Harris yard signs so when migrants need places to live “we’ll already have the addresses of their New families … who supported their arrival!”

    Betcha he’s a “Constitutional Sheriff“.

    6
  10. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    I woke up this morning and went straight to the polls. As one does. I saw the NYT numbers and was depressed. Then I come here and see ‘good polling for Harris.’ As stated above, the topline number doesn’t mean much. A bunch of Californians can run up the national number without adding a single electoral vote.

    I have never been a true-the-polls guy, but I do have one nagging question. I understand that pollsters adjust numbers based on other factors, age, race, location, whatever. But before all the algorithmic mumbo jumbo, they need actual numbers from actual respondents. My question is this: does anyone here know anyone under the age of 30 who answers an unidentified phone call? Ever?

    I’m 70 and I don’t. For my kids, 27 and 25, it is simply inconceivable. I very much doubt that either of them has ever answered an unidentified phone call. So, I get that pollsters adjust the data, but do they have any actual data to begin with? Do they have even, say, 5 respondents in the 18-30 demo? And if so, just how desperately lonely are those five kids?

    4
  11. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    @Michael Reynolds: I’m also 70 and my phone is set to silence if a number is not in my contacts. No, I don’t answer any unrecognized phone number.

    3
  12. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Michael Reynolds: On the one, I think there are real issues with phone-based polling.

    On the other, people were saying “I’ve never been polled” for decades–well before cell phones were a thing.

    I think, ultimately, that the polling in the recent past has been empirically pretty good, if judged mathematically, not by vibes.

    And BTW: if you all click through there is state-level good news for Harris as well.

    But, as the sub-head says: it is all still close.

    2
  13. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Michael Reynolds:

    As stated above, the topline number doesn’t mean much. A bunch of Californians can run up the national number without adding a single electoral vote.

    One more thought: don’t fall for GOP talking points that the national numbers are just CA. (And Trump gets a lot of CA voters as well).

    3
  14. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Scott:

    Arizona: Trump 50-45% Over Harris, Gallego by 6 Leads Lake,

    I find it difficult to believe that people who will vote for Gallego will also vote for Trump. That’s all; it just doesn’t make sense.

    8
  15. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    I know, the polls have been pretty accurate. How is a mystery. Who is answering a phone call? In 2024?

    @just nutha:
    I’ve had that same thought.

    1
  16. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    @Michael Reynolds:

    Polling pretty good, polls pretty accurate. “Pretty” is doing a heavy lift here.

    How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative (New York Times):

    Coupled with the political factors already favoring Republicans — including inflation and President Biden’s unpopularity — the skewed polls helped feed what quickly became an inescapable political narrative: A Republican wave election was about to hit the country with hurricane force…

    Not for the first time, a warped understanding of the contours of a national election had come to dominate the views of political operatives, donors, journalists and, in some cases, the candidates themselves.

    How 2024 pollsters are trying to avoid their 2020 mistakes (Axios):

    …in 2020, national polls saw their highest margin of error in 40 years, per AAPOR. And during the 2022 midterms, the much-anticipated “red wave” failed to materialize.

    I think polling has been “pretty” messy lately. Much worse than that, poll analysis has been shambolic. But there are folks (cable news talking heads, 538, Nate Silver’s substack) whose business models rely on passionately arguing otherwise.

    Unfalsifiable probability models and election punditry are suspect enough on their own, as output. They can’t afford their consumers to start thinking the input is sus too.

    2
  17. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    @just nutha: The commonality there is that the two candidates who are down in the polls are women.

    It has little to do with consistency, or policy.

    3
  18. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Jen: Okay. I hadn’t considered that factor. It works.

    2
  19. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @Michael Reynolds:

    As stated above, the topline number doesn’t mean much. A bunch of Californians can run up the national number without adding a single electoral vote.

    Except there’s some correlation between the national numbers and the EC. In theory it might be possible for Harris to win the PV by 10 points and still lose the EC, but realistically we know that’s never happening. If she’s up by 5, I think we can safely assume she’s winning the EC. And the level of advantage the Republicans enjoyed in 2020, where Biden won nationally by nearly 5 points but his EC win depended on margins of less than a percent in the key battleground states, appears to have shrunk, when you look at the current national polls compared with those of the key battlegrounds. The polls could be wrong of course, but the polls did pick up the Republican advantage in the 2020 election before it happened (in fact they slightly overestimated that advantage).

    Why this is the case is a good question. I think it’s partly because the Republicans have made gains in non-swing states like New York, while Dems have gained ground in the swing states. We shouldn’t discount how Dobbs and Jan. 6 may have changed the map, as well as the fact that Dems are no longer neglecting their ground game like they did in 2020 due to the pandemic.

    3
  20. Scott F, Avatar
    Scott F,

    Any poll modeling meant to factor in GOTV efforts has to be based on past patterns, does it not? But, everything I’m reading suggests there is unprecedented activity in new voter registration, small donor contributions, and imbalance in the respective campaigns’ field operations. Whatever adjustments pollsters are making to account for these enthusiasm indicators I suspect has more guesswork that usual.

    1
  21. Mikey Avatar
    Mikey

    Re: polling, there’s this at LGM:

    I think it’s safe to say at this point that Harris’s political skills deserve the benefit of the doubt:

    The potential political upside of a vice presidential nomination is very marginal, but nominating the most popular person on either ticket sure beats the alternative of of nominating an extremely unpopular one. And the idea that Walz would be doomed in front of a national audience by his allegedly radical (LOL) governorship in Minnesota appears to be pure pundit’s fallacy.

    They link to this tweet from Josh Chafetz that shows the net favorability of a range of politicians, entertainers, and economic systems. Tim Walz is just below capitalism and above Taylor Swift and…well, everything else, he’s literally second only to capitalism.

    The consultants wanted Harris to pick Shapiro, but she went with her choice, which was the right one by light-years. It seems like whenever she has told the established political consultants to eff off, she was right and they were wrong.

    4
  22. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @DK: IIRC, the polling error in 2020 was ~4%. While that is isn’t nothing, a little perspective is in order.

    Likewise, the whole “red wave” thing is more about narratives than it is about polling, per se.

    I am not saying it is perfect, but it is also the case that a useful tool with limitations.

    And yes, the model stuff has gotten a tad out of hand.

    1
  23. SKI! Avatar
    SKI!

    @Lounsbury:

    @SKI: And?
    Their poll says what it says.
    Be glad for the motivation and glad that there is this to avoid complacency. It is merely reality in a tight race that polls, being not Future Predicators but displaying most likley range of probabilities, in such a tight race will bounce around.

    Not sure what you think you are responding to but it came from inside your own head, not what I wrote.

    I posted what I did because it was a brand new poll that contradicted the theme of Steven’s article. The underlying message is that this race is way too close to take anything for granted.

    4
  24. Liberal Capitalist Avatar
    Liberal Capitalist

    Then there are folks that try to make sense out of it.

    I mean, considering all the insanity of the past few weeks , it’s just got to be.

    Trump is at 48 percent. How could this be possible but for widespread racism?

    I guess I never really wanted to admit it to myself before, but there is a lot more hate than I had thought.

    4
  25. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    When I talk about Jim Crow governance, I try to make it clear that I don’t think this type of governance had its origins in the American South. I suspect it was prevalent as far back as our Neandertal ancestors. For a non-American example, here’s 18th century Frenchman Jean-Jacque Rousseau, as described in a NYTimes piece:

    Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind,” in which he explored the origins and effects of economic inequality on societies, is perhaps his most enduring work. In it, he observed that unequal societies are inevitably divided into two diametrically opposed classes, rich and poor. While the poor struggle to liberate themselves from poverty and oppression, the rich and powerful employ clever techniques to maintain their wealth, power and status.

    Inequality wasn’t new to the 18th century. It had been a central attribute of the feudal world. But its ability to survive feudalism’s decline during the Enlightenment was alarming, and it became increasingly important for Rousseau to understand the techniques by which it was maintained.

    One tool that sustained inequality, Rousseau observed, was divisiveness. It is, he observed, in conditions of extreme inequality that cynical leaders would foment “everything that might weaken men united in society, by promoting dissension among them” and sowing the “seeds of real division.” Those in power accomplish this, he speculated, by fostering a “mutual hatred and distrust, by setting the rights and interests of one against those of another.”

    2
  26. The Q Avatar
    The Q

    How in the F is AZ going for Trump? If economy is the big issue, how can those AZ voters not be completely in favor of a Dem. Why? The friggin’ CHIPS Act has literally made Maricopa county the fastest growing, with housing equity soaring with no end in sight as INTEL and TSMC add thousands of new, well paying jobs with a tertiary effect of adding 16 new jobs in the community (dry cleaners, markets, restaurants, construction) for every one semiconductor job. And it’s not just INTEL/TSMC. All the subcontractors (clean room, fab machines etc) are opening offices there. Arizona is a boom town. If it’s the economy stupid, why aren’t we winning in a landslide?

    Because it’s also the border stupid. Gallego sounds like a Republican on this issue, hence he’s winning v Harris whose record as border “Czar” is hurting her in AZ.

    Our border policy has cost us so many seats and POTUS elections. What’s so hard for Dems to say, “in order to protect our hard working blue collar and other lower wage employees, we need a secure, closed border….”

    FACT: working class wages soared when border was closed for COVID for the first time since Carter was POTUS. Why? we stopped the invasion of millions of illegal laborers who have undercut wages for 50 years in the country, with the Dems fully complicit. Sanctuary cities? What a joke. If some red neck sheriff said “I am not going to enforce federal gun laws” we libs would have a fit. When our side says “I am not going to enforce federal immigration law” the trupers have a fit. And both sides are right in throwing a fit.

    Note: On cue, Harris announced a visit to the border in AZ on Friday. Excellent strategy. Obviously, her advisors read my comment. (wink)

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/23/politics/harris-campaign-possible-southern-border-trip/index.html

    2
  27. gVOR10 Avatar
    gVOR10

    @MarkedMan: I hadn’t read that piece this morning. Thanks for the pointer, it’s spot on.

    It’s a commonplace to say that race is the constant in American politics. The author is clear that Rousseau didn’t address race, but race “fits seamlessly” into divineness as a political strategy. And he’s right, the constant isn’t race, but rich and poor. Despite all their MAGA faux populism and other blurring of lines, Republicans are still the party of the rich and powerful.

    Of late I’ve participated here in some discussion of NYT v FTFNYT. NYT sees themselves as the voice of the NY establishment, i.e., in their view, the world’s elite. Note this essay on Rousseau is by a political scientist, not an NYT staffer. For the attitude of NYT staffers, Eschaton links to an interview with Maggie Haberman.

    Haberman … And I guess I don’t really understand how this industry that literally exists to attack the press broadly – and the media is not a monolith. It’s not a league. But this industry that exists to do that – I don’t see how they think they are a solution by undermining faith in what we do. That’s been very confusing to me.
    DAVIES: Yeah. Well, I mean, part of the attacks are clearly are partisan. I mean, Republicans and Trump supporters are going to attack.
    HABERMAN: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about…
    DAVIES: Yeah, well, who is the industry you’re talking about? Yeah.
    HABERMAN: I’m talking about criticism on the left.

    How dare those Little People criticize ME? Living totally in a bubble. She also said,

    And I think that Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media process every day, has for years. The systems are just fundamentally – they were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does.

    She sandwiches that in praise of what a good job the press is doing. But when she talks of “process” and “system”, who the hell defines their processes and systems more than Haberman, Sulzberger, et al?

    2
  28. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Michael Reynolds:

    I have never been a true-the-polls guy, but I do have one nagging question.

    It’s worth remembering what the polls measure: the preference of registered voters, adjusted by population demographics (well understood) and then adjusted again by expected turnout assuming that there are no unprecedented shifts in those demographics turning out to vote, and no other one sided boost (less well understood).

    There’s likely an assumption that GOTV will not be dramatically more successful for Democrats than Republicans (Trump has trashed the RNC, but how this will affect state operations is a guess, and the Republicans are relying more on outside groups to do GOTV)

    There’s also an assumption that women will make up N% of the electorate, based on statistics from the last few Presidential election cycles. If more are likely to vote (Abortion is an issue), the top-line polling numbers wouldn’t necessarily capture that.

    The 2022 midterms didn’t have the expected Red Wave largely because the makeup of the electorate was different than previous off-year midterms.

    All this goes to say — polls are tools that can and are widely misused. They are great at showing direction of movement, but the actual number… usually good, but a lot of ways to introduce error.

    1
  29. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @The Q:

    . If some red neck sheriff said “I am not going to enforce federal gun laws” we libs would have a fit. When our side says “I am not going to enforce federal immigration law” the trupers have a fit. And both sides are right in throwing a fit.

    Local sheriffs don’t enforce federal laws. It literally isn’t their job.

    6
  30. Gavin Avatar
    Gavin

    @The Q:

    What’s so hard for Dems to say, “in order to protect our hard working blue collar and other lower wage employees, we need a secure, closed border….”

    If your objective is actually to protect jobs, then the increase in regulatory staff needs to be focused at….. the location of those jobs.
    Want to actually protect native-US low-wage employees? Then do random raids of any/all businesses and issue instant $100,000 fines TO THE BUSINESS for every employee onsite who doesn’t have a green card.
    But they don’t do that – and will never do that….. because this isn’t about US jobs at all, as every Chamber of Commerce knows. Restaurants, construction, food processing are just 3 of the many businesses that will immediately drop in volume without the ability to exploit low-wage immigrant labor. US citizens don’t want jobs that pay at best half of minimum wage.
    Besides, Democrats did negotiate and do something earlier in 2024 to “fix” this…… but Republicans killed it even though many Republicans did sponsor and work towards passing the legislation.

    3
  31. DK Avatar
    DK

    @The Q:

    FACT: working class wages soared when border was closed for COVID for the first time since Carter was POTUS. Why? we stopped the invasion of millions of illegal laborers who have undercut wages for 50 years in the country, with the Dems fully complicit.

    False. The average wage briefly rose when millions of native-born Americans were briefly removed from the job market by COVID disruptions, thus briefly increasing the demand for and value of labor.

    It had nothing to do with any paranoid “border invasion by illegals” xenophobic Fox News fearmongering. It was American citizens leaving and then reentering the workforce by the millions.

    Despite the pandemic, wage growth held firm for most U.S. workers (Pew Research Centers):

    As the pandemic struck, lower-wage workers proved most likely to experience a job loss. The shift toward higher-wage workers among the employed helped to raise the median hourly wage to $23 in the second quarter of 2020…

    …the median wage among employed workers alone has drifted down since the second quarter of 2020 as the unemployment rate dropped and lower-wage jobs were partially restored.

    3
  32. DK Avatar
    DK

    @The Q:

    What’s so hard for Dems to say, “in order to protect our hard working blue collar and other lower wage employees, we need a secure, closed border….”

    Because Democrats aren’t into rightwing propaganda. The threat to hardworking blue collar workers is not migrants. It’s rich corporations and their political handmaidens.

    Migrants are not responsible for the corporate and investment class’s choice to price gouge and pay slave wages while blocking paid leave, child tax credits, debt forgiveness, universal early childhood education, mass transit investment, and a public healthcare option.

    But Trump Republicans *are* responsible for killing Biden’s bipartisan border bill.

    Migration benefits the working class and all Americans, because our birth rates are declining and without with immigrant labor and tax money our public and private financials would implode.

    Hence why whenever conservatives get a chance to keep their immigration restriction promises — like when they had total control in Trump’s first two years — their Chamber of Commerce overlords force them to spike the ball instead.

    Democrats should urge voters to follow the money. They should not cosign the right’s favorite distraction tactic: scapegoating poor, powerless brown folk so the powerful, greedy billionaires who are actually harming us escape blame.

    4
  33. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    @Scott:

    Voters Evenly Split on Which Candidate Better on Democracy

    Has there ever been a more scathing indictment of American education?

  34. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    @The Q:

    How in the F is AZ going for Trump? If economy is the big issue, how can those AZ voters not be completely in favor of a Dem.

    Except that it’s not about the economy, or who would be better for the economy. It’s about perceptions of the economy, and of who would be better. And the GOP has been crushing the Dems in mistaken/false/disinformed perceptions of, well, pretty much everything, for many years now.

    1
  35. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @DrDaveT: No. If the school systems were really failing, the split would be disproportionately for Trump, not an even split.

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