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Good Polling News for Harris

Steven L. Taylor
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Via The Financial Times: Kamala Harris is more trusted than Donald Trump on the US economy.

Although 41 per cent of Americans still trust the former president more on economic issues — unchanged from the two previous monthly polls — the survey found 42 per cent of voters believe Harris would be better at handling the economy. That is a 7 percentage point increase compared to Biden’s numbers last month.

So, really a statistical tie. But a significant shift in an area that has been a major vulnerability for the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the trendline at the FiveThirtyEight polling aggregator is making the Harris folks happy and the Trump folks less so.

Granted, this is still a statistical tie.

The swing state numbers are similar (i.e., statistical ties with Harris-favoring trends). For example, Fox News reports:

According to polls released this weekend by Siena College for the New York Times, Harris tops Trump by four points – 50% to 46% – among likely voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 

[…]

According to the new surveys, in a multi-candidate field that also includes Democrat turned independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and independent Cornel West, Harris edges Trump by two-points in Pennsylvania and holds a five-point lead in Michigan and six points in Wisconsin.

[…]

The New York Times Times/Siena College polls were conducted between Aug. 5-8 with 619 registered voters in Michigan and 661 in Wisconsin. The Pennsylvania survey was conducted between Aug. 6-9 with 693 registered voters.

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44 responses to “Good Polling News for Harris”

  1. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    Trump is in trouble, bigly. I don’t see how he recovers. I think he’s toast. (White toast, of course.) He cannot change, he cannot control himself, he is not capable of message discipline aside from ranting the same rants over and over again. He’ll keep playing the worn-out hits, he’s got nothing else. And my God, three weeks in and he still doesn’t have a nickname for Kamala.

    Right now Trump can’t even dominate a microphone or a camera. He’s just so tired and so out of material. He’s a 78 year-old road comic still making Caitlin Jenner jokes. Or in Vegas terms, he’s Wayne Newton singing Danke Schoen to a half-filled theater full of octogenarians.

    Reminder to self: I need to ask Jack and JKB where they come down on the great electrocution vs. shark issue. This is perhaps the most important issue of our time.

    11
  2. gVOR10 Avatar
    gVOR10

    On the one hand, this poll on the economy mostly shows the silliness of polls. There is, I think, very little daylight between Biden and Harris on economic policy. But Harris isn’t tagged as much with blame for inflation and she gets a halo effect for not being old.

    On the other hand, it’s good news that it’s happening, as are the swing state polls.

    3
  3. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    Can someone fix that dupe?

    1
  4. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    Yeah, I just saw the Trump fundraising YouTube again. He’s sitting on an airplane in a seat, and someone is shooting him from the seat in front. It’s rambly as hell. “Joe Biden was the worst president in history, because of policy, and also because of other things, but because of policy.”

    What was that?

    Also, “Kamala will lose because she’s for open borders and no more Christmas”

    ???

    Weird.

    4
  5. a country lawyer Avatar
    a country lawyer

    I recognize this feeling. There were times when I went into a trial that I hadn’t been able to settle
    and just knew I was headed for an unfavorable verdict. And then something unexpected happened that changed the entire complexion of the case. A witness changed her story, a piece of evidence disappeared or a lost witness was found, but for whatever reason the trial is totally different and I could see victory. That is the feeling I have since President Biden stepped aside and Harris emerged as the candidate. It’s a great feeling, .

    18
  6. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @gVOR10:

    mostly shows the silliness of polls

    I would counter that it doesn’t show the silliness of polls but instead shows that public opinion is not based on pure rationality. Indeed, the polling helps us understand that fact. Perception is often more important than reality.

    12
  7. Barry Avatar
    Barry

    @gVOR10: “On the one hand, this poll on the economy mostly shows the silliness of polls. There is, I think, very little daylight between Biden and Harris on economic policy. But Harris isn’t tagged as much with blame for inflation and she gets a halo effect for not being old.”

    IMHO, it showed the propaganda effects. The MSM spent years painting Biden as the man who destroyed the economy, but that’s not relevant.

    3
  8. Grumpy realist Avatar
    Grumpy realist

    Now Trump is claiming that all those pictures of Kamala Harris being surrounded by enthusiastic crowds have been created by AI.

    Guess we can tell the argument he and his minions will take after the election, no matter how many votes he loses by.

    At some point we’re going to have to incarcerate sore losers who refuse to accept evidence. One of the unspoken rules of a democracy is that when you lose, you accept your loss gracefully and wait for the next time around.

    8
  9. Lounsbury Avatar
    Lounsbury

    @Michael Reynolds: Any number of things can still go wrong – do not count your chickens before you have your eggs even.

    Trump is indeed on his back-foot and he does not show any sign of being able to adjust.

    But three months is still ahead and until you have strong leads rather than statistical ties in the key Electoral College geographies you should avoid any sentiment of triumphalism.

    @Barry: Polls show the reality of general population opinions, malleability within bounds of those views and the profound short-termist bias of human memory and views generally speaking on items peripheral to one’s own immediate life.

    While for the Party Political Partisan it’s comforting to blame “The Media” (aka in American lingo “MSM”) for unpopularity, the comparative reality is that populations everywhere absolutely hate inflation episodes and the party / government in power at the time of the episode gets blamed for that – even if the media environment is favouring that party (or even outright controlled by it). – this quite regardless of whether that party is really to blame or not for such inflation.

    Rather than using ‘MSM” blaming as a crutch, one simply needs to take the lesson that on a popular level, acceleration of inflation (that is any change in the general level of inflation from a recent baseline) is short-term political poison. No amount of BoBo Left Explaining or Inflation Denialism is going to change that – and the political effect is broad and perceivable across different political systems – so nothing really to blame on your media.

    Rather you need to accept the policy error of generating more inflationary pressure via excess stimulus – a reasonable error to have been made but an error politically (although arguably not economically) – is an effect that no media nor spin nor BoBoLeft-splaining to the heathen non-believers will change.

    However luckily the same short-term memory bias and the inflation cooling pattern are such that the same political penalty paid early is rather likely to rebound by November barring some economic surprise. There is reasonable chance of a central bank rate cut in September and already debt pricing on market basis is moderating. Decent chances of a goldilocks interest rate situation for Fall 2024

    3
  10. Lounsbury Avatar
    Lounsbury

    @Steven L. Taylor: Exactly – the bounded rationality of humanity is made more evident in polling.

  11. Mister Bluster Avatar
    Mister Bluster

    test

    1
  12. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    Look at the polling graphics, not just the two above but overall and going back months. Trump’s trend lines in almost all polling are flat and they’ve been flat all along. His ceiling and his floor are fundamentally the same. Biden’s poll numbers have varied based on the mood of the double-haters and the undecided/unengaged.

    I’ve felt for some time this would be a GOTV election (followed by legal shenanigans from the denialists). Through Biden’s time as the candidate of the Democrats, I held that his party had the better of the argument as the election neared, when the unengaged started to pay more attention and the stakes of the outcome became more salient than the horse race. I believed then that the undecideds would swing mostly to Biden when push came to shove.

    The change in candidates has proved an accelerant. One of The Hated has stepped aside giving the double-haters an easier choice. The enthusiasm Harris/Walz have generated will help Dem GOTV through more volunteers and the draw of the bandwagon. Trump’s ceiling/floor numbers will remain the same until the end. The only question is will the mood of the undecideds get them out to the voting booth for Democrats or staying at home.

    5
  13. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    Meanwhile, back in the real world:

    If you read the news and watch the mainstream media tell the story, just six weeks ago the President of the United States Joe Biden was the best version ever, doing handstands while reciting Homer in Greek and driving his advisers to exhaustion by knowing more and quizzing them relentlessly about facts and policies he knew better than they.

    Just six weeks ago. But now, the fact that Biden is president is almost completely memory-holed.

    And:

    Kamala Harris was a drag on the ticket because, well, she is an idiot with the political instincts of snail. She was Border Czar, opposed fracking, was 100% on board with Bidenomics, and the Democrats desperately needed to get rid of her. But now, presto!! Now she is the rebirth of Jack Kennedy and a Barack Obama-level political genius, and is all for a tough border. Every single policy position she ever took has been rejected and replaced with literally nothing. There is no policy section on her website–and the media is patiently waiting weeks to even speak with her because they are afraid that she will look like the idiot she is if she is asked a question. And don’t get me started on Grandpa Minnesota.

    Its pure propaganda. And propaganda – widespread – is hard to fight. But her time will come. The light will shine. The dishonesty and filth will be exposed.

    Just another example: We learn that Tulsi Gabbard was put on the Terrorist Watch List, and the MSM, again, seems incurious. Speaking of filth.

    OTB commenters seem fine with all of this. Speaking of filth.

    Enjoy the propaganda driven honeymoon. It will end soon, and badly.

    1
  14. wr Avatar
    wr

    @Jack: Wow. So this is what it looks like when MAGA starts spiraling down. Must be tough to see the political movement into which you’ve invested your entire existence reduced to a sad joke. But when all you’ve got is fear and hate, once someone stands up to you it’s pretty hard to get people to stop snickering. Don’t worry, “Jack,” we’re not laughing with you, we’re laughing at you.

    Fortunately, once Trump is defeated and MAGA is a global laughingstock you can change your screen name again and come up with some new identity to troll under. If you’re really skillful, maybe it will take more than two days for everyone to see through you next time.

    Oh, and if Tulsi Gabbard was indeed put on the watch list, I am curious. I assume she’s long since sold out to Russian assets, but I do wonder what she’s suspected of doing specifically.

    11
  15. Grumpy realist Avatar
    Grumpy realist

    @Jack: actually Kamala Harris wasn’t “the Border Czar”. But keep spewing forth your hallucinations. Maybe you are nothing but a Chat GPT communications anyway…that would make sense, no?

    6
  16. Mikey Avatar
    Mikey

    @Jack:

    She was Border Czar

    This is a lie. Why do you constantly lie?

    You don’t have to answer, because we all know already. Lies are all you Trumpist fools have, because the truth is something you cannot face.

    9
  17. Thomm Avatar
    Thomm

    @Jack: as the kids say nowadays: Cope harder.

    6
  18. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @Jack:

    OTB commenters seem fine with all of this. Speaking of filth.

    Thanks for backing up my point about the unending anger and grievances of online Trump supporters. Love it when that happens.

    Kamala Harris was a drag on the ticket because, well, she is an idiot with the political instincts of snail.

    I am actually working on a post that addresses the mistake in this thinking. It should be up tomorrow. You probably won’t like it, but I encourage you to read it and let us know what you think.

    12
  19. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    To be honest, I am surprised at how effective Kamala has been. Her media game has clearly improved even over the course of the last two months. Her voice has a better sound to it, there’s less strain to it and more resonance.

    5
  20. wr Avatar
    wr

    @Mikey: “Why do you constantly lie?”

    I try to imagine an answer to this question that could convince anyone…

    2
  21. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    @Jack: Let me guess — you think the film Gaslight is an instructional video?

    5
  22. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    So assuming the current trend continues, we need to think about a couple of things: An attempt to disrupt the election itself, or after a Harris victory, a black swan event designed to overturn the results, or an attempt to do the same via “the death of a thousand cuts”…

    1
  23. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @Jack: @wr:
    Jack doesn’t understand that we can smell his fear rising from his words. It’s a salty, metallic smell.

    If Kamala wins it will destroy Jack’s whole world view. It will mean billionaire assholes don’t quite control the country. It’ll mean that being a pig isn’t a sign of success. It will mean his own dick will actually get smaller.

    This is going to be fun. We get to watch as a cult of personality sees their man god slowly deflate before their eyes. It’s like the Paradise episode of original Star Trek. “Behold a god who bleeds!” Just another nasty, mean old man ranting like the deranged old fool he is. Tell us that story about the electric sharks, old man. Snicker.

    MAGA will hobble off into history, to become a punchline. They’ll tell themselves Trump lost his mojo. It’ll be easier on their egos than admitting they were suckers.

    I’m saying two years before Melania and Don Jr. are fighting over who gets to be conservator of his assets. And that’s if he doesn’t do time.

    6
  24. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Jack:

    Just another example: We learn that Tulsi Gabbard was put on the Terrorist Watch List, and the MSM, again, seems incurious. Speaking of filth.

    I would be happy with congressional investigations into this, if the Republicans actually want to investigate rather than just score points. I guarantee there are lefties on that list probably incorrectly as well, but Gabbard seems like a good case to dig into because her life is already so public.

    And, since you already know she’s on a list, it would be reasonable to assume the Christian Nationalist Jihadists she is plotting a bombing campaign with already know she has been compromised, so there’s less harm in opening her case to public scrutiny. I mean, the government will probably not want people to know they can read every signal message, but even a “through sources we cannot disclose, we have learned that she was in contact with individual X, a former colonel with the FSB” or something would be enough to get a little transparency in the process.

    The “terrorist watch list” can mean countless things, and we’ve had a security state that isn’t really held accountable for its actions since the Patriot Act, if not earlier.

    3
  25. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Jack:

    Kamala Harris was a drag on the ticket because, well, she is an idiot with the political instincts of snail.

    Her 2020 campaign sucked. Wrong candidate at the wrong time, plus the campaign itself sucked.

    She had the political sense to get out early rather than roll around in loser stink and tarnish her future prospects. So, that’s something.

    Does it irk you that in 2020 your Manchild Godking was defeated by a senile man in his basement? And that now someone with the “political instincts of a snail” appears to be beating him?

    Does it irk you that your Manchild Godking said that Biden would drop out so many times that it became a realistic political option? Never happened so late, and Trump did a lot of the work normalizing the possibility.

    2
  26. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @Mikey:

    This is a lie. Why do you constantly lie?

    Lies are all they have.

    7
  27. Grumpy Realist Avatar
    Grumpy Realist

    @Gustopher: Also what is causing everyone to scratch their heads is how Trump’s campaign doesn’t seem to have had a Plan B set up. Probably because TFG won’t let them pivot to anything. Trump is still blathering on about President Biden and how “it’s UNFAIR!!!” that Harris has taken over because he wants to go back to when he was winning. Like most narcissists, he’s unable to deal with reality…

    2
  28. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Michael Reynolds: Conservator of his assets? What assets?

    1
  29. inhumans99 Avatar
    inhumans99

    @Grumpy realist:

    Wow, Jack, JKB, and I presume similar trolls on other sites are recycling the failed “attack” against Harris being a failure when it come to the border due to her being the appointed border czar, which to everyone credit was immediately debunked with an umm…no, she was never appointed a border czar, and what she was appointed to try and solve regarding immigration, it turns out that reports show she actually succeeded in her specific targeted mission. The GOP tried to hit Kamala with this, what, less than 24 hours after she stepped up to become the Democratic candidate for President Of The U.S., and this attack was a resounding failure.

    We are three weeks in and folks like Jack are, and this bears repeating, trying to recycle attacks in the hope that they stick this time around.

    I have to say that while Lounsbury is right that we need to not count all our chickens before they have hatched, it has become shockingly evident the past couple of weeks that the GOP and its surrogates like Jack, and JKB, are adrift at sea.

    There is still three months to go, but we are seeing evidence that those “independent” voters that at one point we all rolled our eyes at and go, oh you mean the folks who just do not want to admit they will vote for Trump, well…something kind-of surreal (or weird, if you prefer) is happening before our eyes, now that the choice is not between Old-Man Trump and Old-Man Biden, but Old-Man Trump, and the Energetic and positive Kamala Harris, we are finding out that they like hearing Kamala’s message of hope vs listening to a bitter old-man yell at everyone that they sky is falling and only he can prevent it from happening, the polls are showing that is not just me saying they are tired of hearing this message being screeched at them, that is so wonderful to see.

    Yes, we should not count all our chickens just yet, but the nagging feeling that was constantly in the back of my mind that Trump was going to end up back in the White House, it seems to have gone dormant.

    Kamala should not rest on her laurel’s, and I do not think she has any plans to do so, but Democrats really can admit to being more hopeful than they were a bit over 3 weeks back.

    I will definitely not engage with you Jack, and JKB, even if you directly respond to this post, unless you both put in more effort than recycling a several weeks old attack that went nowhere fast, that really is rather sad and pathetic, it just is, and you both know it.

    4
  30. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Jack: the fact that you resort to a mix of exaggeration, hyperbole, and outright lies is not a sign of the strength of your position.

    If you are as right as you clearly think you are, show your work and make an actual evidence-based argument.

    8
  31. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @just nutha:
    Well, he has six boxes of NFTs, a pallet of Trump Bibles and a bathroom full of classified documents.

    2
  32. wr Avatar
    wr

    @inhumans99: “I have to say that while Lounsbury is right that we need to not count all our chickens before they have hatched,”

    Well, Lounsbury and EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT, starting with the Harris campaign and working its way down through the ranks.

    Honestly, find me one person — other than a random, anonymous internet troll — who says “relax, it’s in the bag for Kamala.”

    We are Democrats. We’ll be sure it’s over after the inauguration. Or the 2026 midterms.

    8
  33. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @wr:

    Well, Lounsbury and EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT

    While I no longer read anything with his name attached at the beginning, I think it is worth pointing out that if you take anything he says no strip out the juvenile insults, what is left is almost always completely banal when it isn’t just wrong.

    3
  34. Modulo Myself Avatar
    Modulo Myself

    Calling Harris an idiot reminds me of when actual idiots thought Obama hadn’t merely misspoken with 57 states. No, he was an idiot and didn’t know how many states there were.

    It’s the equivalent of political blackface. You can insult someone, you can take their worst impulses and traits and distort them. But you have to know what these traits are. Absent that, you hire white people to play at being a complete ignoramus’ version of black people, which is what Trump and co are going for.

    2
  35. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Jack:
    Fracking is actually a tricky issue.
    On one side, the urgent need to minimise CO2 impact.
    It was 41 c in Bordeaux yesterday.
    THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
    On the other, hydrocarbons are necessary to sustain the current economy, and one may as well frack ’em as import from the al Saud et al.
    Vice President Harris is simply dealing with the pragmatics of this: accelerate transition to hydrocarbon reduction, while minimizing possible economic damage.
    It’s a tricky act, and messy to manage.

    IMUHO the best approach was the French: build out fission reactors, and bugger the protests.
    Which is why France now has the lowest CO2/GDP ratio in the OECD.

    Border control is also a bit of a devil: the obvious route to deter undocumented migrants is to fine the holy hell out of anyone who employs them.
    But for some peculiar reason, this approach seems rather unpopular with GOP donors.

    Also, last I checked, President Biden is still president of the United States of America.

    And Tulsi Gabbard is a loon.
    Possibly a dangerous loon.

    11
  36. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Michael Reynolds: Exactly!! What assets??

    1
  37. Ken_L Avatar
    Ken_L

    Meaningless poll, or rather, a poll whose meaning is unknowable. I’d love to get a group of respondents and have them tell me one at a time what they think “handling the economy” means and why they think one candidate would handle it better than the other.

    1
  38. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Ken_L: But that’s not what is being measured. What is being measured is voter perception and it has decidedly shifted in a way that is positive for Harris.

    It truly is not meaningless.

  39. Gavin Avatar
    Gavin

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    the polling helps us understand that fact

    Dr.Taylor, it should be posted about and stated in the mainstream conservative press that… Up until the fateful debate, Biden’s campaign team stopped paying attention to polls. Biden’s campaign team truly attributed the lack of red wave in 2022 to a country-wide approval of Biden’s policies and not a hint of anything else including something that had happened concerning abortion access. They convinced themselves that Joe Always Defies The Odds, and were gobsmacked when the party finally pushed a mirror in front of him.

    @Jack:

    she is an idiot with the political instincts of snail

    .

    Jack, she was a senator from 2017 to 2021. She was a career local district attorney from 1990 until being San Francisco DA from 2002-2011, and was AG for all of California from 2011-2017.
    If that list makes her “an idiot with no political instincts,” every Republican including Junior Varsity Thiel is measurably worse. Who do Republicans have with more experience? Not any politicians, and definitely not Trump’s joke writers.

  40. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @Gavin:

    Jack, she was a senator from 2017 to 2021. She was a career local district attorney from 1990 until being San Francisco DA from 2002-2011, and was AG for all of California from 2011-2017.
    If that list makes her “an idiot with no political instincts,” every Republican including Junior Varsity Thiel is measurably worse. Who do Republicans have with more experience? Not any politicians, and definitely not Trump’s joke writers.

    FWIW, Jack says that isn’t necessarily what he thinks (though we’re not quite sure what he thinks). He was only conveying what (right wing websites told him) Democrats think. See the comments on this post for more details:

    https://drjjoyner-cmlud.wpcomstaging.com/the-gift-of-f-a-i-l-ure/

  41. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    @JohnSF:

    On one side, the urgent need to minimise CO2 impact.

    Oh boy howdy the downsides extend into polluting underground and above ground water supplies. Who doesn’t want a source of water that also contains oil related gases and liquids?

    https://www.epa.gov/hfstudy/questions-and-answers-about-epas-hydraulic-fracturing-drinking-water-assessment

  42. matt Avatar
    matt

    Oh and…

    https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes

    No edit on firefox win 10 pro

  43. Gavin Avatar
    Gavin

    @Matt Bernius:

    Matt, Jack thinks Trump finally Became President by returning to the pre-Obama-era party deference [read: no campaigning for one week] exhibited when one party’s nominee is revealed. It couldn’t possibly be that Trump himself is scared to go in public – or that Trump is struggling to find any venue nationwide willing to go into debt to host one of his events because his 2024 campaign still hasn’t paid the debts outstanding from Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns.. and therefore when the venues demand full payment up-front, Trump can’t afford it.
    Trump is a broke boy with negative rizz – people are now falling asleep at his barely-attended rallies! The hullabaloo about AI at KH’s rally is a sad attempt to distract from Trump’s poor attendance and no engagement among the few who do attend. It’s jover for the Trumpus.

  44. Ken_L Avatar
    Ken_L

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    What is being measured is voter perception and it has decidedly shifted in a way that is positive for Harris.

    That’s sort of right, in that voters feel more positive about Harris than they did about Biden, therefore they feel she’d be better able than him to do just about everything. But that’s all the data mean. It’s impossible to know what respondents think “handling the economy means”; consequently the responses aren’t quantifying anything concrete. If the purpose of the poll is to learn about respondents’ general opinions of the candidates, it should say so, rather than engage in pseudo-scientific analysis of how they feel about their capability to “handle the issues”.

    The poll could have simply asked a single question “who would make a better president?” and the responses would have been equally useful, without the pretence that respondents (1) have shared interpretations of what various abstract terms mean, and (2) have devoted sufficient thought to each one to have a rational opinion about the relative ability of the two candidates to “handle” them, whatever that is supposed to mean. Moreover a survey consisting of a single question would overcome some of the problems pollsters are having getting anyone at all to participate in their never-ending torrent of polls.

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