Is Kamala Harris’ mojo fading? Two pollsters who got the last two elections right say that it is — and they think Donald Trump has an edge in the battleground states.
According to the New York Post, InsiderAdvantage and Trafalgar polling surveyed seven battleground states and predicted the GOP nominee would end up with 296 electoral votes if the election were held today — more than enough to win.
“Matt Towery of Georgia-based InsiderAdvantage found Trump ahead in Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina (and down by 0.4% only in Georgia),” the Post noted.
“He noted that both he and Robert Calahy of Trafalgar (which handled Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) were both in the top 3 of pollsters in the ‘16 and ‘20 cycles because their methodology allows them to “pick up some Trump vote that some of the other pollsters might not be able to get.”
All of the states were within the margin of error, it’s worth noting — but the Harris momentum has notably stalled, in their view, given that the flurry of activity which coincided with her accession to the top of the ticket has abated somewhat.
“The momentum that we were seeing after the Democratic National Convention has sort of come to an end,” Towery said.
As for voter enthusiasm, which had been up on the Democratic side, that too has come back down to earth for Harris.
Towery said that now, both parties are “close to parity” in terms of how excited they are about their respective candidates.
The Trafalgar polls, taken between Aug. 28 and 30, saw Trump winning 44 electoral votes from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Will Kamala Harris lose?
Insider Advantage took its polls between Aug. 29 and 31 and found Trump on top in Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, with him just slightly behind in Georgia.
Both pollsters agreed that the debate between the two candidates could be the decisive point of the election, with Towery saying that, should Trump present a “realistic” version of himself in the Sept. 10 showdown, “this could become a real turning point like the Carter-Reagan debate that basically sealed the deal.”
Calahy, meanwhile said Kamala has the most to “lose” and finds herself in a “no-win situation” if Trump doesn’t say something that “overshadows” the rest of the event.
Now, why is this important, aside from the fact that these pollsters have gotten it right in the past? It’s why they think they get it right — namely, that they pick up Trump support where other pollsters don’t.
What we’ve heard about in the past few weeks has been that Kamala Harris’ campaign has energized young and minority voters — two groups that weren’t turning out in droves for Joe Biden.
However, there was bound to be a trade-off, something that the media has seemed to miss: Kamala is too progressive for for the blue-collar union voter or working-class centrist that Biden managed to keep in the Democratic fold back in 2020. She hasn’t managed to help herself much in the interim in that department, no matter how many campaign events she holds with Megan Thee Stallion.
Nationally, RealClearPolitics’ aggregate only has Harris up by 1.9 percent. If that sounds good for her, it’s not; she’ll have to win the national popular vote by a significant percentage to even have a shot at winning in battleground states.
To put this into perspective: Biden led Trump nationally by 7.2 percent in the same average in 2020, but only won by 4.5 percent and by much slimmer margins in battleground states. In 2016, Clinton led the polling nationally by 3.2 percent, won by 2.1 percent, and lost the election in the battleground states.
Moreover, Harris’ upward momentum has more or less stalled after the convention, leading to the debate and the final weeks of campaigning being the deciding factor. Considering Harris’ debate skills, these are polls that should have her very, very worried.
