The Harvard/Harris polls are substantial outliers. This could mean that their methodology is substantially better, worse, or they have been having a bad run of luck when it comes to sampling.

Or, of course, they could be trying to lie to you.

But they sure don’t look similar to other polls out there.

2) First, the poll has a basic methodology issue:

Matching panelists to the voter file is expensive, which is why most public polls don’t.

Penn uses an unverified panel. Fine in corporate market research, but doesn’t work for politics where a point can make a difference. pic.twitter.com/ldf4hNzKyt

— Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) July 26, 2023

Before I go on, you should know this analysis comes from the Chief Data Analyst for Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination. Make of that what you will. I think his analysis is spot on, and the reason I do is not that I support DeSantis, but because the Harris polls are almost 10 points different from others.

That is a margin-of-error difference. It is because the poll is flawed.

When everybody else has Biden up between 2 and 5 points, a Harris poll showing Trump up by 4 or 5 points seems…implausible.

Comforting to Republicans who want Trump, and of course to Democrats who desperately want to face Trump in the general election. But not so comforting to people who want to know what is actually happening in the race for president.

You know, people who follow polls.

So what is behind the numbers? Why is Trump doing so well in Harris’ polls? Obviously he has to have SOMETHING backing up his numbers, right?

4) Hillary’s pollster would have us believe that Trump and Biden are tied with Gen Z voters.

Does anyone really believe this?

Biden won this Gen Z by nearly 30 points in 2020. pic.twitter.com/WpwvvHgkPH

— Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) July 26, 2023

Harris wants us to believe that there has been a swing toward Trump among women of 13 points since the last election. Does that seem plausible?

Is it Trump’s good looks? His smooth charm with the ladies? A secret desire to have a corpulent loudmouth grab them in their nether regions?

What, exactly, explains this swing? Last I checked most women found Trump unbearable at a pre-rational level.

Granted, Joe Biden is creepy as hell. But that is a known quantity. As is his total inability to appear sentient. But it’s not like the MSM has been pointing this out, and Fox News viewers weren’t fans of Biden in 2020 either.

So it seems on its face implausible, especially since such a large swing toward Trump isn’t being picked up in other polls.

Similarly with Gen Z. Every poll I have seen is that Gen Z is filled with a bunch of censorship-loving zealots who think communism sounds kinda cool. As I wrote yesterday, Gen Zers pretty much hate America, so making it great again is probably not a slogan to swing these voters toward Trump by 30 points.

30 points. Do they think Trump is going to mandate communism, shut down coal plants, and provide reparations?

6) Hillary’s pollster would have you believe that Trump has doubled his support among Blacks since 2020 and that Biden is at just 59% with Blacks.

For context: Democrats typically win Blacks by ~80 points. pic.twitter.com/uxoeFlrjSq

— Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) July 26, 2023

Speaking of reparations, does it seem plausible that Trump has doubled his support among Blacks?

Sure, Blacks aren’t exactly on board with the whole woke transing of every kid in sight, but they have also been the most reliable Democrat voting bloc there is. Do you really think Biden’s support has collapsed? Remember, Biden’s campaign was saved from certain death by Blacks in South Carolina.

Independents, perhaps, might be more disenchanted with Biden than before. So I call that a wash. Maybe, maybe not. But given how awful this poll is all the data should be ignored.

8) Let’s visit the suburbs.

Biden won the suburban vote by 2 in 2020. This shows a 15-point shift in Trump’s favor since then.

Can anyone honestly point to something Trump has done to help himself (+17) in the suburbs these last 3 years? pic.twitter.com/BmsLEqeKIN

— Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) July 26, 2023

The trashiness of this poll is obvious in all these numbers, which shows that Trump has suddenly increased his support by double digits in almost every demographic since 2020. Is that your experience?

Given that Trump is under 60% in the nomination polls with REPUBLICANS, indicating that many of them would prefer a different candidate, it seems odd to imagine that outside the party there has been a dramatic movement toward Trump in the electorate.

We can only speculate about why Harris is so off in its numbers–and Harvard with them–but we all have a good idea of the answer.

Hillary Clinton’s old pollster, Mark Penn, is putting his thumb on the scale for Trump, and using Harvard’s credibility to boost his own.

One last thing: Harvard/Harris and the Harris poll itself are included in the RealClearPolitics average that so many people rely upon to get a picture of the race. They have a huge impact, by proving two data points that are wildly wrong in Trump’s favor. Without those polls, the average Trump numbers would look terrible. With them, the race looks tied.

That is a big deal.