Polling Update: Kamala Peaked Before the DNC and Is Losing Ground

Hype can only propel you so far before it flames out leaving a vacuum to be filled by something. For Kamala Harris, the honeymoon phase is over and voters are looking for some actual policy proposals to sink their teeth in. They’re getting unsatisfying word salads of verbs and adjectives presented as the incohesive agenda of the Harris-Walz campaign.

Welcome the presidential race after Labor Day with just 62 days to go before Election Day. That countdown becomes less meaningful every year as some states will begin their early voting soon. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, for example, early voting starts on Sept. 20.

So, where do things stand after the Biden debate disaster, Trump accepting the nomination at the RNC, the Democratic Party deposing Biden for being too old, and Kamala Harris taking her position as the installed Democratic presidential nominee? Well, it’s complicated, but there are obvious trends.

First and foremost, Harris has taken a notable lead in most national polls by a point or two, a position that isn’t unexpected and basically confers little to no information about what’s happening in the Electoral College. The presidency, after all, is not won as a popularity contest but as fifty individual state elections.

In that area, reports the New York Post, Trump is either tied or leading and in a position with several paths to take the needed 270 electoral votes to win the White House once again:

Fresh surveys from seven battleground states show a scenario in which Donald Trump could win in November with a decisive 296 electoral votes.

Trafalgar, which polled between Aug. 28 and 30, sees Trump sweeping 44 electoral votes from the pivotal Blue Wall states in November, eking out narrow wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin inside the polls’ margins of error.

Insider Advantage handled polling in four other battlegrounds between Aug. 29 and 31, with Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina going to Trump.

To be sure, each of these states remains a statistical dead heat — meaning they could ultimately go either way come Election Day.

However, the polling is a departure from recent polling that shows Vice President Kamala Harris making gains in the states that will decide the election.

In the Wolverine State, Trafalgar has the former president scoring a narrow victory, 47% to 46.6%.

Pennsylvania shows a wider Trump lead: 47% to 45%.

While winning by 2% wouldn’t constitute a landslide, it would be a bigger win than Trump’s modest 0.72% victory in the state eight years ago.

All that is to say, basically, the race is extremely tight but Kamala Harris hit a peak sometime before or during the Democratic National Convention and is falling back to earth in terms of state-level polling.

The trend line is no clearer than Nate Silver’s forecast which recently flipped since mid-August to give Trump a majority chance of winning the Electoral College:

#Latest @NateSilver538 forecast (chance of winning)

August 14
🟦 Harris: 56.7%
🟥 Trump: 42.7%
.
August 31
🟥 Trump: 55.1%
🟦 Harris: 44.6%
——
Swing States: chance of winning

Pennsylvania – 🔴 Trump 55-45%
Nevada – 🔴 Trump 55-45%
Arizona – 🔴 Trump 65-35%
Georgia – 🔴 Trump… pic.twitter.com/KTFgMMwchg

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 1, 2024

Historically speaking, Harris is doing roughly 50% worse than Hillary Clinton was doing on this day and roughly 75% worse than Joe Biden was doing, according to the RCP national average which includes historical data:

While it’s nice to lead nationally, it’s better to lead at the state level where the election is decided. Furthermore, Harris is currently leading at 1.8% on average, a number far below her two Democratic predecessors at this time in the race. If you had to put money down, Hillary Clinton was a much safer bet and she lost in the end despite leading by almost 4 points nationally in early September 2016.

Harris needs to be running more around Biden 2020 levels than Clinton 2016 levels but she’s doing neither. Instead, she’s carved out a slight and meaningless national polling lead while still losing out in crucial swing states.

There are caveats with opinion polls and let’s just state upfront, most of the polls being trotted around for headline purposes are pure garbage. They’re used to sway opinion, not reflect it. They’re used to create hype and prop up donors, not to provide an accurate reflection of what the electorate is thinking at any given time.

The race, for all intents and purposes, is tied with Harris leading the national vote while Trump is ahead or tied in the crucial battlegrounds that will decide the race.

There is a debate coming up on Sept. 10 between Trrump and Harris, perhaps the last big event to change the trajectory between now and November 5.