Tipsheet

Brutal Polling Slaps Kamala on Day of Crucial Debate With Trump

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  September 10, 2024 5:45 AM

Tonight’s debate is the election for both camps. The Waterloo moment is here. The race is virtually tied in the polls. There was no convention bump for Democrats; many are uneasy. You see it on social media, networks, and print. If the election were held today, Donald Trump would win. It’s the same result as it would have been before Democrats pushed Joe Biden off the political cliff. Meet the new boss, same the old boss—both getting beaten by the 45th president of the United States. It’s not a mystery. They all talk about Kamala’s higher ceiling, which is true, but you’ll never exploit that if you keep dodging the media like a scared little girl. 

Second, Harris’ record is tied to Biden’s serial history of economic and foreign policy failure. Third, her agenda is absurdly left-wing and unelectable. No one trusts her, which is well since she has a laughable grasp of the issues: her plan to combat the inflation she caused at the grocery store is to enact Soviet-style price controls. 

Harris has also received a slew of bad polls, which Nate Silver has cited to explain why Harris is projected to lose the 2024 election. In his latest projection, Trump has a 64 percent chance of clinching 270 electoral votes (via Silver Bulletin):

We continue to see mediocre data for Kamala Harris, like a new Pew national poll with a very large sample size that showed the race tied nationally — which would probably translate to a loss for Harris in the Electoral College. Although the model’s convention bounce adjustment will get phased out as we see more post-Labor Day and post-debate data, things are going in the wrong direction for her even without the adjustment. Her lead in our national polling average is down to 2.3 points after having peaked at 4.3 points on Aug. 23. 

The New York Times and recent Pew polls show the former president is on track to win. In the Pew survey, he’s polling better now than at any point during the 2016 and 2020 elections. And remember, the Trump vote is going to be underestimated again. In a recent segment about the race, CNN’s Harry Enten didn’t consider this, though I’m sure he knows it. 

He said if the election polls stand as they are now, Kamala would win, but added that if Trump outperforms his polling by a single point, he would win. He’s currently doing that—a one-point lead isn’t a win for Democrats, and they know it. ABC News’ Matthew Dowd tried to claim that the NYT polling leaned too Republican, which Nate Silver comically smacked down as a coping mechanism. He also rightly called out Dowd for his hackery, adding that if the NYT poll had Harris up five points, he’d be singing its praises.  

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He also called out the media for their supposed lack of anti-Trump stories, noting that The Washington Post and others have covered Trump’s recent outbursts, but no one cares anymore.