Tipsheet

Columnist: 'Trump Needs Someone to Tell Him...He's Losing.' But Is He?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  August 16, 2024 2:15 PM

Political commentator Bernie Goldberg is attempting something of a political intervention-via-column, not entirely dissimilar to a recent post in which I argued that Trump has been jolted from a victory glide path, and is in real danger of losing the November election.  I'm not sure I'd confidently say Trump is losing right now, but his clear advantage prior to Democrats nullifying their election and switching candidates has morphed into a coin toss situation.  He needs to be up bigger than this on the economy, for instance.  If Harris can maintain her media-driven "honeymoon" for additional weeks, and if Trump and Republicans aren't more disciplined on defining her and highlighting her words and record, her frontrunner status could be solidified.  As things stand right now, ahead of Democrats' weeklong infomercial in Chicago next week, national polls suggest that Harris is either winning by a margin similar to Biden's victory range in 2020, or the race is tied, or Trump is slightly ahead.  In other words, pick your preferred poll.  Democrats will pick this one:

The first Emerson College Polling national survey following President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election finds Vice President Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 50% to 46%. Five percent of likely voters are undecided. With undecided voters’ support allocated, Harris continues to lead by four, 52% to 48%. With third-party candidates on the ballot, Harris and Trump’s support evenly decreases by two points, Harris to 48% and Trump to 44%. Four percent support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Republicans will pick this one (I'll note that Fox's polling has not historically been terribly kind to Trump):


And this one splits the difference:


Fox's numbers has Trump up eight with independents, while Cynal gives Harris the lead among that group by the same margin (though Trump has a small lead in the suburbs).  As for swing state polling, it's very tight, with Harris closing the gap or surpassing Trump in states Biden was on track to lose:


If this Michigan poll (exact tie, with Trump slightly ahead on the wider ballot) is accurate, that would be a good sign for him.  If a handful of polls showing Harris now ahead in Pennsylvania are accurate, the aforementioned Michigan poll probably isn't accurate.  And surprise, surprise, here's another extremely close poll out of Wisconsin.  If the election were held next week, it would be a nailbiter.  Nate Silver's model pegs Harris' chances of winning the Electoral College at an all-time high, approaching 60 percent probability (Trump led on this metric shortly after Harris entered the race).  I'll leave you with factors that would keep me up at night if I were running each major campaign:  

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Team Trump should be losing sleep over Democrats' superior ground and ballot operations, a point I've been flogging for months.  If the election turns out to be a real squeaker, Democrat have a modest-to serious advantage on turnout.  If independents roughly split their votes (Team Trump must pummel her favorables with this group, using her own words to make her unacceptable to centrists), base turnout could be determinative.  The Harris campaign might glance at their one-point lead in the RCP average -- after weeks of media glorification and Trump missteps -- and shudder.  Why?  Their trajectory is good, and they're in a far better position to win that Biden was.  But at this exact stage in 2020, Biden was leading Trump by nearly eight percentage points in the same polling average.  The final average in that race anticipated a seven-point win for the Democrat. Biden's real margin was 4.5 points, and Trump came within 44,000 votes in three key states of winning the election.  In 2016, Hillary Clinton was up nearly seven points on Trump in mid-August.  That advantage shrunk to three points by Election Day, and she lost.