The Briefing, Vol. 12, Issue 37
This week:
- Trump reclaims a national lead in new NYT-Siena poll
- A paucity of state-level polling
- Why Biden can’t step down until Nov. 6
President 2024
As tomorrow’s debate looms, the New York Times-Siena College national poll released over the weekend is noteworthy for three reasons. One is that Donald Trump has a lead in this one, unlike all other national polls taken during and since the Democratic convention, not including polls by Rasmussen. (Rasmussen is considered to be more favorable to Trump than other pollsters.)
The second reason this poll bears note is that its result among likely voters — Trump 47, Kamala Harris 45 percent — looks exactly like the same poll that this pollster released on July 25, a month before the convention.
The third reason is that this poll doesn’t look very different from the June 26 version of this same poll, released one day before the debate that infamously caused Joe Biden’s candidacy to implode. In that poll, Trump led Biden by four points, 48 to 44 percent.
Which is to say that this large-sample poll, the first to consist entirely of interviews taken after Labor Day, contains some subtle hints that the race has changed less than it appears since Harris’s coronation.
Recall that, by the time that June 26 New York Times-Siena poll, Biden was already clearly losing. We were pointing out every week that his path was just too narrow, requiring him to win every close state in order to squeak by. It is important to remember that Biden’s debate performance was not the reason Democrats wanted Biden out, but rather the best available excuse his party had for kicking an already-losing candidate off the ticket.
Harris has now replaced him, and the change in this poll at least is that she does two points better than Biden against Trump, trailing him by only two. Should she, then, be expected to live up to all the hype?
One further note about the Siena College survey: Harris (46 percent favorable, 51 percent unfavorable) and Trump (46 percent favorable, 52 percent unfavorable) are almost equally unpopular, and both have universal recognition. This is essentially unchanged from July, despite the extensive media campaign to boost Harris. Given that Trump always has poor favorable numbers, this is probably a bad sign for Harris.
Post-hype polls untaken: Since she acceded to the nomination, Kamala Harris has improved the Democrats’ position over when Biden was their candidate. But this is not necessarily because she narrowly leads most national polls. Biden, after all, led in many such polls, even long after it was clear that his path to an Electoral College victory had all but vanished (something we were already pointing out as early as April 1).
Harris’s positive contribution on Democrats’s behalf, rather, came at the state level. Upon her rise to the nomination, most swing state polls were suddenly too close to call. Whereas Trump had previously been running away with the race in North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and perhaps even Pennsylvania, he and Harris are now in a statistical tie in essentially all of the swing states.
Unfortunately, in a media environment where national polls are flashy and important, there is a lot less work being done to study data at the state level, where the results actually mean something.
As of early this morning, only one pollster (and the relatively unknown Patriot Polling at that) had released any data from the crucial states of Georgia and North Carolina containing any interviews from the current month of September. (Each shows a very slight Trump lead.)
It is already Sept. 9, yet only two polls have been released of Arizona containing any September data at all (one a tie and one a slight Trump lead); only two of Pennsylvania (one shows a tie, the other has Trump up by a point); only two of Michigan (Harris leads by about one point in each); and only two of Wisconsin (one is tied, one has Harris up, 51 to 49).
These are the only indicators of where the race is headed as the post-convention bounce wears off for Harris.
Doubts about Harris: Last week’s noteworthy predictions included that of Nate Silver, the well-known pollster, statistician, and baseball enthusiast. Silver, who leans left in his politics, has a model that was approaching a 64 percent likelihood of a Trump victory as of last week, with a projected 312 electoral votes for Trump.
Along the same lines, the gamblers putting down their money at futures market sites like PolyMarket seem strangely confident in the Republican nominee, at least given the media narrative.
How could this be? After all, according to the dominant media narrative, Harris’s campaign is full of “joy,” whereas Trump and running-mate J.D. Vance are “weird.” The Republican ticket has been ridiculous, ineffectual, or even absent on the campaign trail — or so many liberals tell themselves.
It may be a brutal process of realization, but they may soon find that their premise is just wrong. Maybe Harris is the ridiculous one, and that’s why she has been avoiding the media for more than a month. Maybe her running mate is the “weird” one because so many of the facts in his biography turn out to be untrue, like the stories he told for decades about his DUI arrest and his service record.
All the polling, both national and state-level, points to a race far too close to call. But something is happening out there that makes both the voters and the markets doubt the dominant narrative about Harris suddenly walking in and easily winning as a breath of fresh air in a race where people previously had two unpopular choices. If anyone thought she would just run away with it from here, such fanciful ideas have been cast into doubt by now, and more robust swing-state polling could dispel them altogether.
Hunter Plea: With Joe Biden already returned to the ash heap of American politics, Hunter Biden’s unexpected guilty plea in his tax case may seem irrelevant to this year’s election. However, it serves as an important reminder Hunter’s father is still president, at least on paper, despite evidently lacking the mental faculties to be a candidate for president.
The elder Biden must in fact remain president officially until at least the evening of Nov. 5, so that he can pardon Hunter — which he will do, despite promises to the contrary — before leaving office but after the voting has finished. The optics will not be good for Harris either way, so an early pardon is out of the question. And if Harris does win, there’s nothing she would rather not do as her first act in office — this will be an ugly and controversial act that could trample her honeymoon period. Best to have Biden do it on his way out, since he has no political future and nothing to lose.
Senate 2024
Montana: With each new data point, the possibility that this will be Sen. Jon Tester’s (D) last dance becomes more and more plausible. In a head-to-head, retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy (R) has 51 percent support in a bipartisan survey conducted for the AARP and released last Thursday. In a race including third-party candidates, Sheehy’s lead increases to seven points, 49 to 42 percent.
This race is critically important because Republicans already stand to pick up a Senate seat in West Virginia. Assuming they can keep it together in states they should easily win (including Florida, Texas, and the surprisingly shaky Nebraska), this seat is the most likely to deliver them a Senate majority.
Depending on what happens in the House, a Republican Senate majority will allow President Trump to appoint judges freely and pass new tax policies, or else deny President Harris the opportunity to do the same.
