The new Quinnipiac University national poll shows that Sen. Kamala Harris’s polling bounce after the first round of Democratic presidential debates entirely evaporated by the end of the second round.
Harris polled at 20% the Quinnipiac University poll taken a month ago. A pre-second debate poll released by Quinnipiac on July 29th showed Harris’s numbers in decline, with her standing at 12%.
Their latest survey, taken August 1-5, has Harris polling at 7%.
What unquestionably is most troublesome for the Harris campaign is the dramatic drop in support from black Democratic voters, down to 1% after reaching 27% in early July:
In today’s results: Biden gets 47 percent of black Democrats, with 16 percent for Sanders, 8 percent for Warren and 1 percent for Harris
Contrast that with the pre-second debate poll from July 29th:
Biden gets 53 percent of black Democrats, with 8 percent for Sanders, 7 percent for Harris and 4 percent for Warren
And also the survey from July 2nd:
Harris also essentially catches Biden among black Democratic voters, a historically strong voting bloc for Biden, with Biden at 31 percent and Harris at 27 percent.
When Quinnipiac asked Democratic voters after the first round of debates who performed the best, 47% said Harris. After her last debate, that number landed at 8%.
Harris’s support among female Democrats has also been in a freefall. She’s at 7% now in comparison to 24% a month ago.
So her support has dropped significantly among two crucial Democratic voting blocs: black people and women.
What went wrong for Harris? I bet Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s epic takedown of Harris on her record as California attorney general helped escalate the fall in her numbers. Gabbard raised incredibly essential issues to black Democratic voters about Harris’s time as AG on criminal justice reform.
Her ongoing racially-tinged attacks against Joe Biden may not sit well with black voters who remember (and are frequently reminded of) his eight years with President Obama.
Other polls taken after her second debate confirm the genuine drop in support for Harris, including this one:
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts remain the top three contenders in the first poll conducted in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire following last week’s Democratic nomination debates.But the Suffolk University survey for the Boston Globe released Tuesday also indicates a slip in support for Sen. Kamala Harris of California when compared with polls conducted prior to the debates.Biden stands at 21 percent among likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire according to the survey, with Sanders at 17 percent, Warren at 14 percent, and Harris at 8 percent.Biden stood at 23 percent in an average of the two live operator surveys – University of New Hampshire/CNN and Saint Anselm College – conducted in early to mid-July, before the debates. Warren averaged 18 percent, Sanders 15 percent and Harris 14 percent.
A Morning Consult poll taken Aug. 1-4 showed Harris was the only candidate whose numbers dropped after her second debate:
Kamala Harris jumped into the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates after the first round of televised debates in June, gaining six percentage points in Morning Consult national polling. And now, after the second debates, she’s struggling to stay there, giving back 3 points.The junior senator from California also saw her net favorability crater — it’s suddenly down 11 points, significantly more than any other candidate.
The Senator can continue to make all the excuses she wants for her falling numbers. But the apparent rejection by black voters of the identity politics games Democrats like to play one thing very clear: The Harris campaign is in serious trouble.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter.
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