Polling data, as is the norm going into the final sprint to November, continues to pour in. And yet with all of the ups and downs, the one underlying fact is Kamala Harris is consistently underperforming compared to both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton in the last two election cycles, contests with the same common denominator - Donald Trump as the opponent.
Over the weekend, two national polls, one released by NBC News, and the other by CBS News, padded the Real Clear Politics average for Kamala Harris. Her lead is now up to 2.2%. NBC has the race at Harris +5, and CBS has it at Harris +4. So what to make of these numbers?
First, the NBC poll is of registered voters, not likely voters, so that's a big strike against it this close to the election. If you're not a likely voter by the end of September, you're just taking up polling space. Second, it's always useful to go to the performance grid at RCP in order to measure the track records of these polling outfits over the course of the last few cycles. Out of 18 national pollsters, NBC News has ranked 14th out of 18 for the last decade, lowest to biggest prediction-to-actual error rate, missing 5.2% of the time. In 2020 alone, NBC predicted Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump by 5.7% more than the narrow victory for Biden it turned out to be.
As for CBS, their new survey at least samples likely voters, but they fare even worse in the pollster performance chart. They come in 16th place out of 18 over the last decade, missing an average of 5.7%. The other recent polling of national polls is Harris +2, Trump +2, and a straight-up tie. But what about the Battleground states?
New York Times/Siena is out with a bunch of numbers out of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, and they're all pretty good news for Donald Trump.
🇺🇲 2024 GE: NYT/@SienaResearch
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 23, 2024
ARIZONA
🟥 Trump: 50% (+5)
🟦 Harris: 45%
Last poll (8/15) - 🔵 Harris +5
——
NORTH CAROLINA
🟥 Trump: 49% (+2)
🟦 Harris: 47%
Last poll - 🔵 Harris +2
——
GEORGIA
🟥 Trump: 49% (+4)
🟦 Harris: 45%
Last poll - 🔴 Trump +4
——
#1 (3.0/3.0) |… pic.twitter.com/oItjnaKpFJ
No wonder Kamala Harris is clamoring around for another softball debate on home turf. Their internals must be showing similar numbers or worse. And it's not hard to understand why, especially after the disastrous performance in the livestreamed town hall that even legendary Oprah Winfrey couldn't salvage.
In the swing states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, the same dynamic is happening. Kamala Harris is underforming where Joe Biden was on this day in 2020, with nothing on the horizon to turn her fortunes around. That's why she's scheduled a policy speech mid-week, to try another stab at an economic plan. In the meantime, here's where the race stands, state by state, in the Battleground Seven.
In Nevada, Joe Biden was ahead at this stage of the race by 6 points. Harris right now is up 0.2%. The final margin was 2.3%. If polling was off then by 3.7%, and Harris is only up 0.2 now, even with the SEIU union entrenched for Harris, that looks like a state that will surprise people with their call in November.
Arizona was the biggest eye-popper out of NYT/Siena Monday morning. They now have Trump up 5. In 2020, Joe Biden was ahead of Trump in polling by 4 points. With the NYT/Siena numbers factored in, RCP's average is now Trump +2.2. Kamala Harris is 6.2% behind where Joe Biden was at in late September. In 2020, the final margin of victory for Joe Biden was 0.3%, so the polling was off by 5.7%. Imagine what Trump's 2.2% lead will translates to in November if the polls are off by a similar margin this cycle.
In Michigan, Joe Biden was ahead of Donald Trump on September 23rd by 6.4%. The final margin was Biden +2.78%. That's a 3.6% miss. Kamala Harris is currently up 1.7%. She's behind where Biden was by 4.7%. If the same error ratio is applied, Trump is going to win the Wolverine State.
Wisconsin is notoriously an impossible state to poll. Remember that the Washington Post famously had Joe Biden up 17 points a week before the election in 2020, and the final margin was 0.6%. But here's the current data. The RCP average showed Biden with a 6.9% lead in 2020. Harris is currently tracking 5.9% behind that. So if the pollsters miss by a similar 6.3% as they did in 2020, and Harris is only up 1 point currently, Wisconsin is another state that will flip for Trump.
In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman warned recently that the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler has apparently established a connection between Trump and a ton of voters in the Keystone State.
FETTERMAN: “Trump has created a special kind of a hold... he has a special kind of place in Pennsylvania and I think that only deepened after that first assassination attempt.”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 22, 2024
pic.twitter.com/WniYQayFP1
As for where the race stands there, in 2020, Joe Biden was ahead by 4.5%. Harris is currently leading, but only by 0.7%. The final margin in 2020 was also 0.7%. The error rate was 3.8%. If Kamala's lead is that thin, Trump will end up winning that state and the election, with everything else is just an academic argument as to how big the margin in the Electoral College will end up being.
In North Carolina, Joe Biden was up in 2020 by 0.5%. Today, Donald Trump is up by 0.4%. That means Kamala Harris is almost a full point behind where Biden was in a state where the final margin was Trump +1.34%. Even with the Robinson mess at the gubernatorial level, Trump looks poised to do better than he did four years ago.
Finally, in Georgia, with the new NYT/Siena numbers factored in, Trump was up at this point in 2020 by 1.2%. The final margin was Joe Biden by 0.23%. The miss was 1.43%. Donald Trump is currently sitting on a 2-point lead. The fake accent doesn't seem to be working for Harris as she's behind where Joe Biden was in a state that was decided by just under 12,000 votes.
Rick Klein on ABC's This Week yesterday had this piece of analysis that's endemic with virtually every voting bloc the Democratic Party needs desperately in order to win. Klein reports at how much Harris is losing ground with Latinos.
As we all saw during the debate a few weeks ago, ABC is no friend of Donald Trump or the Republican Party. If Klein is showing this canary in the coal mine, it shows fundamental problems with the Harris campaign.
Going back to Real Clear Politics, one of the two gurus that compile all the data is Tom Bevan. And after the state polling today by NYT/Siena, he notes that the topline national average advantage for Kamala Harris is almost certainly overstated for Harris.
Needless to say, if Trump is really up by this amount in these battleground states, the national polls from yesterday are almost certainly overstating Harris's support. https://t.co/lEI3UjpIfv
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) September 23, 2024
Kamala Harris is behind where Joe Biden was with Black voters in 2020. She's behind where Joe Biden was with Latinos in 2020. She's behind where Joe Biden was with Jewish voters. She's behind where Joe Biden was with Labor. She's behind Joe Biden with white, non-educated males. She's behind where Joe Biden was with the military vote.
The polling will continue to bounce around for the next month and then tighten during the final fortnight. But barring an October surprise, Donald Trump is much better positioned to win the Electoral College, and the presidency, in six weeks.
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