For all the media adulation over Vice President Kamala Harris before, during, and after the Democratic National Convention last week, the Democratic nominee's poll numbers have failed to rise significantly.
Yes, it is true that, unlike when President Joe Biden was still the presumptive nominee, former President Donald Trump is no longer leading in the polls. But in his third campaign for the presidency, Trump, who won in 2016, is in a stronger position today than he has ever been in either of his prior two campaigns.
Harris is coasting on the positivity that came with replacing a doddering 81-year-old man as the Democratic nominee. Since she entered the race, she has steadily improved on Biden's 3-point polling deficit to the point where she now leads Trump by 1.7 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
But again, the national polls in 2020 at this point showed a Biden lead of 7 points, which translated to a 4.5-point victory in the national popular vote and a razor-thin victory in the Electoral College. Similarly, Hillary Clinton led Trump by 6 points in 2016 before losing the Electoral College and the presidency, even as she won the national popular vote by 2 points.
The conventional wisdom (pun intended) was that the Chicago convention would give Harris the opportunity to introduce herself to the nation and provide the momentum she needed to become the favorite in a race that has been extremely close. But this boost has so far largely failed to materialize.
Instead, there is a much stronger case to be made for the notion that Harris had an "entrance bump" that started when she replaced Biden atop the ticket but that this advantage has since plateaued to the point where the polling is starting to settle back into a more stable picture.
For example, a recent poll from Yahoo News and YouGov taken during and after the convention gave the Democratic nominee a 1-point lead over Trump, a drop from pre-convention polls that consistently gave her a lead of 3 to 4 points.
At the same time, there are serious warning signs for her campaign in those same polls that purport to show her ahead.
Earlier this month, I wrote about how the Harris favorable polls are oversampling Democratic voters and undercounting Republicans. But there are also other warning signs for the Harris campaign in these polls.
In that same Yahoo News poll, Harris trailed Trump among independents, 44% to 35%. She was also under 50% among Hispanic voters, far below the estimated 60% that Biden received four years ago. At the same time, there are indications that pollsters are overestimating Harris's support among older voters, a demographic that will surely back Trump on Election Day.
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These warning signs for the Harris campaign may be why Democratic operatives have warned that the public polling picture is painting a much rosier picture of the general election for Harris than what internal polls say.
With the DNC in the rearview mirror, the Harris campaign is left wondering what happened to her convention bounce while more troubles brew beneath the surface.
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