Polls show some good early signs for Kamala Harris

Welcome to The Campaign Moment, your guide to the biggest developments in a stubborn 2024 race that’s showing some signs of being shaken up.

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The big moment

It’s the question that’s been on everyone’s minds since 1:46 p.m. Eastern time Sunday: How much did the 2024 election actually just change?

A literal criminal conviction of one of the candidates, after all, had a muted impact. And President Biden’s stumbling June 27 debate performance appeared to move the needle only slightly against him — often within polls’ margin of error.

Well, we’ve now got some real data on the race, post-Biden’s exit from the presidential contest. And the short answer is: The switch to Vice President Harris appears to have improved Democrats’ chances modestly. But it’s still very early to draw too many conclusions.

On the plus side for Harris, she appears to be pulling in some key, Democratic-leaning voter groups that had soured on a Biden-led Democratic ticket, and her poor image seems to have improved. She’s also gained at least somewhat in most polls. On the plus side for Trump, his image numbers appear as good as they’ve been in a long time, potentially narrowing Harris’s opening.

The toplines

While an NPR/PBS/Marist College poll showed a slight gain for Trump, three others this week showed the Democratic ticket gaining at least a few points. Democrats gained four points in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, three points in a CNN poll Wednesday and five points in a New York Times/Siena College poll Thursday.

All show the national race is now neck-and-neck — between a three-point Trump lead and a two-point Harris lead.

The Marist poll was probably a bit of an outlier at the time — it actually showed Biden ahead by two points earlier this month — and it’s worth noting that the pollster changed its methods for the quick-turnaround poll. So the results aren’t strictly comparable. The other surveys, meanwhile, suggest some movement toward Harris.

And those aren’t the only encouraging signs for Harris and the Democrats.

The key groups

One of the big ones is young voters. The CNN poll showed the Democratic ticket gaining five points among voters under 30 since April and June. The Times/Siena poll showed it gaining 11 points since earlier this month. The Marist poll showed fewer young people ditching the ticket for third-party candidates in a crowded race.

Another is Black and Latino voters. The CNN poll showed Democrats gaining seven and six points with those groups, respectively. The Marist poll showed Trump’s vote share among non-White voters dropping by eight points. (But the Times/Siena poll actually showed Trump gaining among Black voters.)

These are important numbers, because these were perhaps the three most troubling groups for a Biden-led Democratic ticket. The groups have favored Democrats by substantial margins for decades, but Biden was performing historically poorly among them. And notably, the Marist poll showed significant increases in enthusiasm among all three — higher than most any other group.

Beyond that, Harris appears to have gained some popularity. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed her image going from 14 points underwater (39 percent favorable, 53 percent unfavorable) last week to just six points underwater (44 to 50). The Times/Siena poll showed her favorable rating rising 10 points since February. And the CNN poll showed her with her highest favorable rating since 2021.

The caveats

But even that latter number was far from sterling — 39 percent favorable vs. 52 percent unfavorable. For all the Democratic talk about the game being changed, they still have a likely nominee who is more disliked than liked in all of these polls.

There are also conflicting findings on how older and White voters might have shifted, raising the possibility that Harris could lose ground with some voters while gaining with others.

And in the meantime, Trump’s own image appears to be improving. The CNN poll (43 percent favorable) and a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll (40 percent) showed more Americans had a favorable opinion of Trump than at any point since 2020. And a Quinnipiac University poll (46 percent) showed that number higher than at any point since Trump launched his first campaign in 2015.

It’s possible that’s temporary and owes to the recent assassination attempt and last week’s Republican National Convention. (Conventions usually provide a boost.) But so too is it possible that Harris is benefiting from her own honeymoon period that might not hold up over time as scrutiny increases — particularly of the left-wing policies she embraced in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

If there’s a plus side for Harris, it’s that she’s less defined and has more room for growth. For now, she’s benefited from that and appears to have expanded the appeal of the Democratic ticket. Democrats have gone from fearing that 2024 is lost to at least having reason to believe.

But the 2024 script has proved difficult to rewrite before. And we’re dealing with lots of significant factors converging all at once. That means it’ll take some time to shake out.

Another moment you might have missed

There has been debate within the Democratic Party about how much they should focus on Trump’s criminal conviction, which as noted doesn’t appear to have affected the race much thus far.

The early signs are that Harris intends to drive it home early and often:

The campaign’s first ad, released Thursday morning on social media, features a reference to how “no one is above the law,” while images of Trump’s mug shot and headlines about his Manhattan conviction flash on screen.
The campaign later Thursday put out a press release off Trump’s Fox News interview titled, “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance.”
In the most oft-quoted and -clipped line from Harris’s presidential campaign debut Tuesday, she prominently featured her time as a prosecutor and California attorney general. “In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” Harris said, as the crowd began to pick up on where she was going. “So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

While Biden made reference to Trump’s conviction at times, and the campaign even ran some advertising featuring it, it hasn’t been a huge centerpiece of the campaign so far.

Harris stepping forward could change the dynamic somewhat. She’s more active on the campaign trail, for one. But more than that, it’s arguably a better line of attack with a former prosecutor atop the ticket and given these issues were somewhat uneasy for Biden to talk about, possibly due to his son’s own recent conviction.

A momentous number

29 percent, 32 percent, 33 percent

Those are the percentages of respondents who said Biden should resign from the presidency right now in the CNN, Marist and Reuters/Ipsos polls. In each, around twice as many or more said he should stay.

That’s notable for a couple reasons.

One is that after Biden pulled out, Republicans set about arguing that he must resign, too. Another is that a huge majority of Americans have said for a long time that Biden is too old and not mentally sharp enough to serve as president.

The lesson: Americans seem to see a difference between Biden not being up to the job for four more years and being able to serve out the next six months.

It’s also, notably, far lower than the percentage of Americans who said Trump should resign at various points in his presidency. After Jan. 6, as many as 53 percent of Americans said Trump should resign. And half said he should resign early in his term, amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Take a moment to read:

“‘Not going to be nice’: Trump, Harris trade sharp attacks as 2024 race resets” (Washington Post)
“Biden seeks to define his legacy in address explaining his campaign exit” (Washington Post)
“What key-state voters think about Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden” (Washington Post)
“Why almost everyone assumes Kamala Harris has to pick a White man as VP” (Washington Post)
“Could Republicans get buyer’s remorse with JD Vance?” (Washington Post)
“Kamala the Prosecutor” (The Atlantic)
“Biden Lost His Voice, Then His Power” (Politico)