Opinion: Unpacking Harris’s dramatic polling transformation

Voters’ views of Vice President Kamala Harris have undergone a tremendous transformation since she entered the presidential race.

An early July NBC News poll revealed what countless previous polls had demonstrated — Harris was not well regarded. Voters with an unfavorable view of her outnumbered those with a favorable impression by 18 percentage points.

Today, she is net favorable by 3 points in the NBC poll — a dramatic, positive reversal.

Before you chide me for cherry picking a single poll, note that poll averages aggregated by 538 register a nearly identical transformation .

In early July, the vice president was 18 points net unfavorable but today is 1 point net favorable.

Long-time NBC News political guru Mark Murray put it rather narrowly , “No major-party presidential candidate in the 35-year history of the NBC News poll has seen this kind of jump in popularity…”

The only comparable surges resulted from rally-around-the-flag effects at the outset of war — George H.W. Bush in the Gulf War, George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. (NBC suggests its polls detected a big boost in favorability for businessman Ross Perot, a non-politician who exited and then reentered the 1992 presidential race, but other surveys found virtually no change whatever in his ratings.)

I’ve seen politicians emerge on the scene and go quickly from unknown to beloved, at least for a time.

But changing people’s minds about a political figure is an enormously difficult endeavor and I have never seen anyone accomplish that goal to this degree, this quickly, absent a momentous real-world event.

It is truly mind boggling.

There are reasons, of course. Back in July Harris was “merely” second chair to a president, who was equally unpopular. Today she is building her own identity and reputation.

Democrats love that they have a candidate they can back whole heartedly, while many independents hope they have found an acceptable alternative to Donald Trump.

Harris filled a lot of needs for a lot of voters.

But it was not just her winning smile, ebullient personality and cogent debate answers.

Voters are making a series of clear distinctions between Harris and Trump.

Harris enjoys an advantage of 15 points or more on “being honest and trustworthy” (+15 points), “having the right temperament to be president,” (+16), “having the necessary mental and physical health to be president,” (+20), “dealing with the issue of abortion” (+21) and “treating immigrants humanely and protecting immigrant rights” (+28).

Trump holds a 15-point or better margin on just one trait — “securing the border and controlling immigration” (+21).

Harris is seen as better able to do the job — physically, intellectually and with integrity — while Trump holds a concomitantly strong lead on just one specific issue.

In fairness, Trump leads more narrowly on the economy and crime, but all told Harris leads on a total of nine of NBC’s comparisons, Trump on just four.

Each candidate leads on their core issues, but Harris holds a commanding lead on the broader tests of character and ability.

In January, long before Biden’s show-down debate, it was Trump who held a 23-point advantage on having the physical and mental health required for the job, while today Harris enjoys almost the same advantage over Trump on that dimension.

An AP NORC poll examined different, and differently worded, issues finding Harris with advantages of 15 points or more on abortion, climate change and health care while Trump’s largest advantage was a mere 5-points on immigration.

People don’t make voting decisions by tallying lists like these, but they testify to Harris’s remarkable transformation and her underlying strength against Trump.

Usually character traits like integrity, ability and competence weigh more heavily in the calculus of voters’ decisionmaking than specific issues, especially when there are serious doubts about character and ability, as in Trump’s case.

But Harris monopolizes not only the character advantage; she leads on several key issues.

The race for president is far from over, but Vice President Harris has already made historic gains and benefits from underlying advantages.

Mark Mellman is a pollster and president of The Mellman Group, a political consultancy. He is also president of Democratic Majority for Israel.

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