Vice President Kamala Harris’s favorability has surged 16 points since July giving her a 5 point lead over Trump in an NBC News poll, which they note is the largest increase for any politician since George W Bush’s jump after 9/11.
“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%. While that result is within the margin of error, it’s a clear shift from July’s poll, when Trump was ahead by 2 points before President Joe Biden’s exit,” NBC News reported.
“But the transformation in the presidential contest goes well beyond the horse race. For starters, Harris’ favorability has jumped 16 points since July, the largest increase for any politician in NBC News polling since then-President George W. Bush’s standing surged after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”
The NBC News poll found Harris with an advantage in terms of being seen by voters “as competent and effective, as well as on having the mental and physical health to be president — a reversal from Trump’s leads on those qualities when he was matched up against Biden.
Harris still needs to make her case on the economy and inflation, as “Trump holds important advantages” on those issues, “although those leads are smaller than they were when Biden was still in the contest.
We need to look at trends for polling, so it’s worth mentioning that this isn’t a one-off.
Two days ago, Harris reached a favorability of 50 with an AP-NORC poll, “Fifty percent of American adults have a favorable view of Harris, the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found. Meanwhile, 44 percent have an unfavorable view.”
Four days ago, Gallup had Harris and Trump both still under 50% favorability.
Harris has had a lot of catching up to do as a candidate, jumping in so late but the results of her hard work are starting to be seen in polling as voters are receptive to her message.
Democrats in general need to make a stronger appeal on the economy and inflation, breaking it down in sound bites for regular voters who aren’t experts in understanding the complexity of the issues, especially given that economic experts say that ex-president Donald Trump’s plans for a second term would drive up inflation and lead to a recession by mid 2025.
The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation found Trump’s tariffs to “almost certainly increase the risk of a recession.”
In fact, 70% of top economic experts say Trump’s policies would increase inflation.
This surge for Harris is unprecedented in the last several decades, sans a terrorist attack. This is good news for the pro-democracy folks, and also a big arrow pointing at where they need to do more work. It also demonstrates that two months of personal attacks from Donald Trump and his allies have failed to change minds. It seems the more voters see Kamala Harris, the more they like her.
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