We are now 48 days until the 2024 general election. And with the date speeding toward us, I wanted to check in on the state of the race and the latest polls. Kate and I recorded this week’s podcast this morning. And the theme was sort of trying to make sense of just what is happening right now in the aftermath of the build up to the debate and the debate itself. We have another assassination attempt which seems like an oddly secondary story. We have the ongoing grotesquery of Trump’s and Vance’s assault on Springfield, Ohio. The Trump campaign has been rather candid with reporters, telling them that they’re willing to take the hit on now admitting they were lying about the initial Fido and Felix barbecue allegations since it puts immigration at the forefront of the campaign. In other words, it might seem like a bad story for them — they’re revealed as cynical and destructive liars. But it’s a great theme for them. Because if the topic of the day is immigration, they win.
Is that true? Maybe? It’s definitely possible. But I think skepticism is warranted on two counts. The first is that old pattern of Donald Trump stepping on a rake and then insisting that’s just what he meant to do and not only that but it’s the best thing that could happen to him. And there are enough examples of this being true to give normal people pause, to make them worry that there is something they’re missing. But I don’t buy it. This has been a trainwreck for the Trump campaign. It wasn’t intentional. Maybe it ends up being a boon. But not because it was the plan all along. My main point is that people shouldn’t let themselves get psyched out. And I actually don’t buy that it’s helping his campaign.
More specifically, is this really about the border and immigration? Sort of. But the story we’re seeing is more one of a small community being terrorized by a campaign that looks desperate and in which the Republican town and county leaders have been begging the Trump campaign to stop and now saying that they’re not even sure they’re going to vote for Trump because they’re so mad about the situation. I think there’s at least as much argument that the story people are seeing is about the chaos and destructiveness of Trump, which most people don’t like.
The polls of the moment only give a limited view into how this story is affecting the overall dynamics of the campaign. But to the extent they tell us anything they back up my hunch. We’re now getting a sustained run of post-debate polls and they’re pretty strong for Harris, both at the swing state and national level. After what seemed like a pre-debate swoon she’s back to her highest margins of the last two months. Specifically, they show her consolidating meaningful leads in the Blue Wall states and Nevada while remaining neck and neck in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
Just today you had a set of swing state polls from Quinnipiac that are of the lopsided variety which drove Joe Biden out of the race. Harris up by six in Pennsylvania, for instance. Maybe that’s an outlier. But another high quality poll from Suffolk a few days ago showed her up by three. We’re not seeing the kind of poll numbers that would make anyone confident of a Harris win. But almost all of them show the race trending in her direction or consolidating the small lead she’s had almost since she got into the race. If you flip the game board and look at it from the perspective of the Trump campaign the electoral paths to victory look narrower and narrower.
It remains the case that if you figure in even a small polling error, it could all be different. But that’s always the case. The information we have and our insight into the future remain as incomplete as ever. But based on the information we have, the trajectory of the race looks friendly to Harris and she’s already at least a bit ahead. Back to the standard points. We have no guarantees about how the race turns out. Polls are a fuzzy predictor. But let’s not be in denial about what the facts in front of us are saying.
