As tumultuous as this presidential campaign has been, one can only wonder what unexpected turn lies ahead or, a bit less dramatically, evolves into a new phase with a different set of dynamics. But first, let’s look quantitatively at the state of play.
The RealClearPolitics average of national polls now has Vice President Kamala Harris edging ahead by a half of a percentage point, 47.6 to 47.1 percent, though Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin average—one that I prefer because they are a bit choosier in which polls they include—had Harris up by 2.6 points, 46.5 to 43.9 percent. Most election experts believe that because Republican voters are more efficiently distributed around the country, a Democrat needs to win the national popular vote by somewhere between two and four points before they can plausibly have a shot at reaching 270 Electoral College votes.
Unfortunately, there are not many high-quality, post-Biden polls in the key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, so it is a bit soon to get a good handle on how this is translatable to that winning edge. The New York Times/Siena College polls released over the weekend in the three most closely watched states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—find Harris ahead by four points in each, 50 to 46 percent, though each was within the margin of error.
In Michigan, Fox News had the two candidates dead even, at 49 percent each, while Bloomberg News/Morning Consult had Harris up by 11 points, 53 to 42 percent.
In Wisconsin, Fox News had Trump up by 1 point: 50 to 49 percent, while Marquette University Law School’s poll had Harris up by a point, 50 to 49 percent. The Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll had Harris up by two points, 49 to 47 percent.
In Pennsylvania, the Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll has Trump up by four points—50 to 46 percent—the inverse of the NYT/Siena survey. Fox News showed the race as a tie, with each candidate receiving 49 percent.
Few doubt that Harris has improved greatly since her less than impressive 2020 bid for the nomination. Her team, as well as Biden’s, executed the transition perfectly.
She also benefited from the relief and the open arms that she was greeted with by many in the party, suddenly elated they were back in the hunt. Just a few days earlier, after Biden’s widely panned debate performance, many Democrats avoided windows of tall buildings, fearful of the temptation to fling themselves out. The gratitude that a drowning person has when a life ring is thrown to them knows no bounds. That is how many Democrats feel today, feeling almost a new lease on life—though anyone who think she is the favorite now is at risk of an overdose of "hopium."
Republicans had to feel whipsawed. The race had been going swimmingly for them, then even better after the Republican unity generated by the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, and his unbelievable immediate response to it. But the Democratic switcheroo from Biden to Harris clearly caught him and his campaign unprepared, mentally and politically. The campaign has seemed off-balance and Trump clearly rattled by it. Trump has real pros running his campaign now. My guess is they will stabilize the campaign shift, but their mercurial candidate could be a different story.
Did the assassination attempt effectively give Trump his convention bounce early, only to be stepped on by Democrats’ candidate switch? Did Harris get her convention bounce early with the goodwill and relief that greeted her entry and liftoff? And is it sustainable?
This is so different from a race with an incumbent seeking reelection, inevitably a referendum on that officeholder with the 8 to 10 percent of voters not locked into either side asked to decide whether they want to extend the contract for another four years.
Here’s another way to look at it: While a substantial number of swing voters did not care for Trump as a person, they also did not like where the country, or the world for that matter, has been for the last three-and-half years.
It was pretty clear many voters were exceedingly unhappy with their choice between the 81-year-old incumbent and his 78-year-old predecessor. Now, they have a different choice. No one knows how the Harris option will compare to the Biden route, but there is some reason for Democrats to have some hope, albeit nothing like certainty or even probability.
Bruce Mehlman’s “Six-Chart Sunday” mini-deck released yesterday effectively articulated the volatility of our politics and the hair-trigger emotions that swing voters feel. One of the smartest folks in Washington with a background in the Republican Party, but exceedingly clear-eyed in his analysis, Mehlman released an extensive look at our politics. Between Mehlman and Democrat Doug Sosnik’s periodic analyses, it’s hard to do better in understanding where our politics sit at any given moment.
Both have frequently pointed to the fickleness and impatience of American voters in terms of flipping control between the two parties. Mehlman’s first slide yesterday points out that in the 10 presidential and midterm elections during the 1960s and the 1970s, the House, the Senate, and/or the presidency changed parties three times, and four times in the 1980s and 1990s. But in the dozen elections from 2000 on, flips have occurred 10 times.
Mehlman's next slides point to the anger and the pessimistic mood of the country, the lack of trust in government, and, looking more expansively around the world, how many recent elections globally have also shown voters to be in the mood to throw the "ins” out. In this country, they point out that the winner often is the candidate most disassociated with the status quo in Washington.
So in a choice between former President Trump, who will top the GOP ballot in three consecutive elections, and Harris, who has been a much younger No. 2, which is the more “in” candidate and which the “out”? If a Harris administration is perceived as a Biden administration 2.0, she loses. If Harris is seen as a newer, fresher, and more different approach than either Biden or Trump, she wins. The side that frames that best will be the victorious one.
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