Democratic pollsters voice skepticism over Harris surge in polls

Despite growing Democratic enthusiasm about Vice President Kamala Harris's polling boost, Democratic pollsters are urging caution about overly optimistic assumptions.

After President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race in July, Harris took his place and saw an almost immediate honeymoon polling boost, a trend that has largely continued. However, wary of past polling miscalculations, Democratic pollsters are sounding the alarm on the growing optimism within the Democratic Party.

“It’s still a very tough race, and that feels consistent with everything we know,” Democratic polling firm GBAO Strategies partner Margie Omero told Politico.

Democratic pollsters are still shaken over faulty polling in 2016 and 2020, in which former President Donald Trump significantly overperformed what pollsters projected. They have spent the previous four years trying to figure out the error.

“I spent a ton of time and analysis trying to dig into those problems. And I feel much better educated about those problems,” said Nick Gourevitch, a partner at Global Strategy Group and a driving force behind the post-2020 Democratic polling autopsy. “I don’t think there’s any pollster in America who can sit here and say ... that they’re 100% sure that they fixed any issues in polling. I think that would be silly.”

“Every year, we’ve had different curveballs. This is a difficult industry,” said John Anzalone, who was the lead pollster on Biden’s 2020 campaign. “Something’s gonna happen in 2024. You and I, right now, don’t know what that is.”

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The attitudes of Democratic pollsters are similar to that of Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chairwoman of the Harris campaign. At the CNN-POLITICO Grill in Chicago, she gave a similar analysis of the overconfidence of Democrats.

“We don’t have it,” she said when asked if she had identified a clear path to victory. “We are a polarized nation in a challenging time, and despite all the things that are happening in this country, Donald Trump still has more support than he has had at any other point. ... It is going to come down to every single vote.”