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Steve Kornacki Brilliantly Breaks Down Kamala Harris' Problem in the Polls

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  October 14, 2024 5:45 PM

As we get closer to Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris is facing a major problem. Guy covered some of the polls earlier, and how they're "red flags," but perhaps one of the worst signs for Harris is the NBC News poll, with MSNBC's Steve Kornacki breaking down some key findings. 

That poll shows Harris and former and potentially future President Donald Trump tied at 48 percent among registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. This is not where the Harris-Walz campaign wants to be, especially given what the margins were in the polls and final results with Biden-Harris in 2020 and Clinton-Kaine in 2016.

This poll was conducted October 4-8, with 898 registered voters.

Not only is Harris tied, after she led Trump by 49-44 percent in the September poll, but her popularity level has gone down as well. It would seem that the more Harris tries to put herself out there with a desperate kind of media blitz, the worse she does.

The NBC News write-up for the poll spoke to "Harris' popularity declining compared to a month ago, after she got a big summertime boost," as one of the key findings. Meanwhile, Trump continues to improve. As the write-up further mentioned [Emphasis added]:

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Another significant change in the NBC News poll since September is Harris’ popularity.

One of the major developments in September’s NBC News poll, conducted after the Harris-Trump debate on Sept. 10, was her double-digit increase in popularity compared to earlier in the summer, before she became Democrats’ presidential candidate. Her ratings shot upward to 48% positive, 45% negative (a +3 net rating).

But in this latest poll, Harris’ rating stands at 43% positive, 49% negative (-6), with the erosion coming mainly from independents and young voters.

That’s not too far removed from Trump’s 43% positive, 51% negative score (-8) in this same poll. That positive rating is Trump’s highest in the NBC News poll since he left office.

It's worth noting that there was always going to be a honeymoon period for Harris, who failed to win a single primary vote, as she was someone not named Joe Biden, who was forced out of the race in July by his fellow Democrats. 

Kornacki has been all over MSNBC and NBC News breaking down the poll's results, with a particular focus on Harris' popularity rating, specifically the decline. 

The poll had been released in time for the most recent episode of "Meet the Press" on Sunday, with Kornacki explaining to host Kristen Welker how the tie race is indeed a "shift." When exploring this new poll, he offered, "I think this one is revealing," speaking to "the basic perception voters have of these candidates," as he highlighted those 43-49 percent negative/positive figures for Harris.

Welker murmured "wow" as Kornacki emphasized how "that advantage has all in the last few weeks in our poll washed away for her," speaking of Harris.

Further, Trump's advantages on immigration and inflation/cost of living have only gotten bigger, from +21 on immigration in September, to +25, as well as from +8 on inflation/cost of living to +11.

Kornacki also appeared on "TODAY," where he again emphasized the positive/negative ratings. As he explained to Savannah Guthrie, "I think this might be the biggest for Harris." This time, like the poll's write-up explained, Kornacki spoke to how "in fact, this is a little bit high for him, believe it or not," speaking of Trump. "That's a pretty big shift when you're talking about a race this close," he stressed.

Kornacki also pointed out how Harris is being hurt by being part of an unpopular Biden-Harris administration, when more voters are saying that a plurality of voters say they've been hurt, while a plurality say the Trump administration helped them.

As Sam J. at our sister site of Twitchy covered, citing reporting from The Daily Caller, Kornacki also went on "Morning Joe," where he highlighted not only the shift, but what's been happening in the month in between the polls. 

"There was a clear advantage for her a month ago on basic image, basic likability, basic perception over Donald Trump. That advantage, in our poll at least, has gone away in a month for her," Kornacki said, going on to remind how "this poll was conducted just in the wake of that Trump-Harris debate, what’s happened since, obviously there’s been a vice presidential debate, there’s been campaign events, Harris has done a number of interviews."

He also again brought up the connection to the Biden-Harris administration and the president. "I think Harris is weighted down by being part of an unpopular administration. Joe Biden’s approval rating in our poll sits at 43 percent and to put this in perspective, we also checked the retrospective job approval rating for Donald Trump, asking voters right now thinking back to Trump’s presidency, do you approve or disapprove of the job he did," Kornacki offered. "A 48 percent approval rating for Trump retrospectively, notably, that is better than Trump ever did in our poll when he was actually president. So Trump perhaps benefiting from a little bit of a warming of attitudes towards his presidency after the fact and again, that’s 5 points better than Biden’s current approval rating in our poll."

The polls are indeed tightening overall, with RealClearPolling having Harris up by only +1.7 at the national level. Meanwhile, Trump leads in the battleground states by +0.4. 

Even Nate Silver, although he shows Harris with more of a polling advantage, admitted on Monday that "the race is a pure toss-up."