After the much heralded Democratic convention expectations were that the major media companies and pollsters would flood the polling aggregators with surveys showing Kamala Harris up by seven or eight points or even more.
And while we hear Fox News Channel will have polls out, what we are seeing so far are a dribble of new polls, which for the most part are from not well-known players. And even those from regulars like Yahoo News and YouGov show Harris with a three-to-four point lead nationally.
Why did I expect the polls to show Harris up by at least seven points? Because those who have polled the past few presidential cycles remember that at this stage in both ‘16 and ‘20 Trump’s Democratic opponents were leading by close to seven percentage points or higher.
And that was in the averages. The final result was a win for Trump in key battleground states in his defeat of Clinton and much closer than expected contests in those states versus Biden.
In other words, whatever bounce Harris enjoyed in the polls has plateaued and, so far (with history as a guide,) the numbers are not fitting the media’s mantra that the race is a done deal for Harris.
This all begs two questions. Has the RFK endorsement helped Trump more than polling or pollsters suggest? And is it in Trump’s best interest to debate Harris on the most obviously biased broadcast network, ABC?
More on that to come…