Kamala Up? What Do the Polls Really Say?

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This is an interesting situation.  As Kamala rises in the polls, the stock market declines.  Are the two linked?  Probably not, but who knows?

As of today, the Kamala bounce seems to be real.  A Morning Consult poll from early this month has Harris up by 4 over Trump.  This is a massive poll of 11,000+ registered voters, supposedly giving it more credibility.  But what would be more convincing would be a more targeted poll of likely voters.  One key takeaway from this poll is that Kamala’s popularity may have peaked at 50% and is now moving down.

In what might be a case of polling schizophrenia, a recent Rasmussen Reports poll has Trump ahead by 4.  At nearly the same time, a more recent survey from Scott Rasmussen’s RMG Research showed that Kamala was up by 4.  Figure that out.

Clearly, Democrats were in a state of panic regarding Joe Biden.  Now that that crisis has passed and they have a candidate who can speak undemented though circular English, almost every leftist organization is in a state of verbal orgasmic euphoria.  But is this the result of irrational enthusiasm?  Plugged-in Democrat David Axelrod seems to think so and warned his party that “it is absolutely Trump’s race to lose right now.”

So Axelrod’s message to freaked out Trump-supporters is to get a grip.  Remember that the Real Clear Politics polling average of a five-way race has Kamala up by just a fraction.  On this date in 2016, the RCP average had Hillary up by almost 7.

Trump’s support in swing states appears to have declined.  But that would be expected, considering that Biden dropped out of the race and Trump’s polling bumps from the convention and the attempted assassination are fading.  Let’s take a look.

In Arizona, Trump is up by 2 in the RCP average, based on the strength of just two polls.  An Emerson poll had Trump up by 8 on Jul. 23, followed by Morning Consult five days later, with Harris up by 4.  I am not buying a 12-point swing in less than a week.  In the FiveThirtyEight average, Trump is up by almost 2.  Here, the Morning Consult poll with Harris at 4 was followed by two other polls showing Trump ahead.

At the FiveThirtyEight average for Georgia, Morning Consult has the race tied.  Two other polls show roughly the same.  Trump’s lead of 0.8 is based on polls taken just a few days earlier.  The RCP average has Trump at 1.7, again on the strength of two polls taken before Jul. 28.

Both polling averages have Harris ahead in Michigan.  The RCP average has her up by 2.7, and the FiveThirtyEight average has her up by 2.  Both results are due to a Morning Consult poll where the numbers flip from Trump up by a point or two to Harris up by 12 within two to four days.  Seriously?  This is a poll where 71% said the country was on the wrong track.  I find it hard to believe that voters in Michigan hate Trump so much that they will back a San Francisco socialist.  Sorry, not buying it.

In Nevada, we have confusion.  The RCP average isn’t really an average.  It is just the Morning Consult state poll showing a tie.  There is no FiveThirtyEight average.  There is just a list of polls showing Trump ahead by varying amounts, with the Morning Consult poll showing a tie.  If I do a realistic average of post-Joe drop-out polls, I get Trump +1.

In North Carolina, we have more of the same.  The only poll for the RCP average is — you guessed it — a Morning Consult poll with Trump up by 1.  Again, there is no number for the FiveThirtyEight average; it is just a list.  If I do another post-Joe average of the polls, I get Trump +2.

Moving on to Pennsylvania, the RCP average has Kamala up by a hair.  The FiveThirtyEight average has Harris up by 1.  Surprisingly, Morning Consult has Trump up by 2.

Finally, the RCP average in Wisconsin has Trump ahead by a fraction.  The FiveThirtyEight average has Harris up by 1.6.  If you are having difficulty figuring out how they calculated that number, please remember that FiveThirtyEight uses a weighted averaging technique based on accuracy estimates.  Speaking of accuracy, I want to remind everyone that FiveThirtyEight had Biden over Trump by more than 8 points in Wisconsin in 2020.  Joe won by less than a point.

One of the inherent drawbacks of public opinion polls is most news and polling organizations have a left or left-of-center bias.  This means their inclination is to lean toward or support left-wing ideologies linked to the Democrat party.  I don’t want to pick on any particular organization and claim that it is deliberately biased because that is difficult to prove.  However, even if bias is not deliberate, it sometimes creeps in.  This is why Republicans usually do better than predicted in presidential election years.

The problem with reading polls right now is that there has been a significant amount of political change in a short time.  Joe Biden’s approval numbers had been underwater since the military pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021.  His poll numbers got worse after his recent debate with Trump, whereas Trump’s soared.  Trump also benefited from the Republican Convention and his narrow escape from death at the hands of a would-be assassin.  Now that Biden has been replaced with Harris, the pendulum has swung the other way.  This has nothing to do with Kamala being a stand-alone candidate.  It is simply the fact that she is not Biden.

During the next few weeks, the left-wing media blitz will likely hold sway until after the Democrat Convention.  Harris could rise even farther in the polls.

Unfortunately for her, she can rise only so far.  Prices for gasoline, food, and rent remain a challenge for over half the population.  Immigration and crime are still serious issues.  Unemployment could become an issue.

I’m sure there are a lot of Democrats and probably some independents who are thrilled to have a woman running for president.  But that is not an overly persuasive issue.  It is still crime and the economy, stupid!  So it is still Trump’s game to lose.

The key thing is to take the poll numbers with a grain of salt.

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