DNC bounce or no bounce for Kamala?
Whatever the reason, the first polls released after Harris’s “powerful,” “electric,” and “joyous” acceptance speech show it did little to move the needle.
The post-convention polling results are starting to trickle in, and so far, it appears that voters were largely immune to the Democrats’ audacious attempt to present Vice President Kamala Harris as the “president of joy.” While it’s impossible to measure, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s dramatic exit from the race and subsequent endorsement of former President Donald Trump the day after the convention ended, likely blunted Harris’s momentum as well.
Whatever the reason, the first polls released after Harris’s “powerful,” “electric,” and “joyous” acceptance speech show it did little to move the needle. The headline from pollster Morning Consult read: “Kamala Harris gets no bounce from Democratic Convention.” Yahoo News/YouGov reported: “No Big Bounce for Harris – After the DNC.”
The Yahoo News/YouGov national head-to-head poll, released on Tuesday, showed Harris ahead of Trump by 1 point. An earlier edition of this poll, conducted over the weekend that President Joe Biden ended his candidacy, found Harris and Trump tied.
Although Harris didn’t receive quite the bounce she had hoped for, the poll showed a “huge surge in Democratic optimism.” Given that their previous candidate was a senile, wizened, octogenarian, any replacement candidate that could walk and talk normally would have increased the party’s enthusiasm.
In the Morning Consult poll, Harris led Trump by 4 points, 48% to 44%. These numbers were unchanged from a pre-convention edition of this poll.
Ahead of the convention, Harris led Trump by 1.5 points in the RealClearPolitics average of head-to-head polls. Her lead has since ticked up to 1.7 points.
Left-leaning polling guru Nate Silver bucked the trend. His model indicated that Harris received an initial 2-point convention bounce. On the morning of Aug. 19, Harris was ahead of Trump by 2.3 points. The margin was 47 to 44.7. By Friday morning, Aug. 23, prior to Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump, Harris’s lead stood at 4.3 points. The margin was 48 to 43.7. Her lead has since pulled back to 3.5 points, a margin of 49 to 45.5, leaving Harris’s numbers 1.2 points higher than they were ahead of the convention.
But a few words about Silver’s model, which even he describes as “a little fancy,” are in order. According to Silver, his “polling averages adjust for whether polls are conducted among registered or likely voters, the presence or absence of RFK Jr., and house effects. They weight more reliable polls more heavily. And they use national polls to make inferences about state polls and vice versa. It requires a few extra CPU cycles — but the reward is a more stable average that doesn’t get psyched out by outliers.”
Got it?
Additionally, please bear in mind that Silver’s model predicted a Hillary Clinton victory in 2016.
Today's numbers. Harris's lead in national polls peaked at 4.3 points the day RFK dropped out, now 3.5. Possibly noise since the model is designed to react aggressively to new polling after the conventions, but also could be an RFK effect.https://t.co/vsGVG18HHI pic.twitter.com/8Kno4AarkO
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 28, 2024
Data website FiveThirtyEight (founded by Silver although he has since left the site) reported a 0.7-point convention bounce for Harris. On Aug. 19, the site’s average of 2024 national polls showed Harris leading Trump by a margin of 46.7 to 43.8, or 2.9 points. Harris currently leads by a margin of 47.2 to 43.6, or 3.6 points. Although FiveThirtyEight is a reputable site, its media bias is rated as “skews left.”
Curious about FiveThirtyEight’s polling results, PJ Media’s Matt Margolis spoke to Mark Mitchell, the head pollster at the right-leaning polling firm Rasmussen Reports. Mitchell agreed that national polls had “tightened by about one or two points” over the course of the DNC.
But, Mitchell told Margolis:
The trends that FiveThirtyEight report are ‘much more pronounced’ than what Rasmussen is seeing. Mitchell urged skepticism towards FiveThirtyEight’s model, pointing out that ‘there is a lot about the model that doesn’t appear to be disclosed.’ He also mentioned that Rasmussen was excluded from FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate, which he attributed to ‘ideological reasons and who we associate with.’
Margolis noted that since Harris became the nominee, it seemed that “pollsters have been dragging their feet and not polling as often, or delaying the release of polls.” (I’ve noticed the same thing.) He asked Mitchell to shed some light on this.
“People are holding data or not releasing polls to leave Harris-favorable polling alive in the aggregate,” Mitchell said. “Why put a new poll out if you like the results you got last time?” Why indeed?
Historically, convention bounces have ranged in size from -1%, as John Kerry and Mitt Romney experienced in 2004 and 2012, respectively, to Bill Clinton’s spectacular 16% surge in 1992.
So, what, if anything, can we conclude from these numbers? Is it possible that Harris’s meteoric rise in the polls since being installed as the Democratic nominee has reached a peak? Is her “honeymoon” coming to an end?
Pollster Frank Luntz thinks so. He said: “Even though they had a pretty strong convention last week, it looks like the Harris boomlet has reached its peak — with her having roughly a three-point advantage. I remind you that that was the advantage that Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump on Election Day 2016, and he still beat her in the electoral college. This election is way too close to call.”
Finally, it should be noted that Trump has taken a 2-point lead in the latest national poll from the widely watched prediction platform Polymarket.
Trump's lead is up to 2% in the odds. pic.twitter.com/B64w2YNTVZ
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 28, 2024
According to Polymarket, Trump’s odds of winning the battleground states of Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania have increased. However, he still has work to do in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Swing State Odds (% Chance of Winning):
Georgia – 🔴 Trump 61-39%
North Carolina – 🔴 Trump 61-39%
Arizona – 🔴 Trump 55-45%
Nevada – 🔴 Trump 53-47%
Pennsylvania – 🔴 Trump 51-49%
Wisconsin – 🔵 Harris 57-43%
Michigan – 🔵 Harris 61-39%— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 28, 2024
Now that the conventions are behind us, all eyes turn to the ABC debate on Sept. 10, an event that is likely to reset the race – one way or the other. Although The Washington Post tells readers that “Harris can put Trump away” during this debate, many of us believe the opposite will happen. It will provide voters with a one-time opportunity to see Harris operate without the aide of a teleprompter, a script, or notes. Bring it on.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
100% harris bounces
It was a “dead cat bounce.”
Shouldn’t that be a live hooker bounce? 😉
The phrase is, a dead hooker or a live catamite, isn’t it?
The original phrase was a Louisiana politician (Earl or Huey Long?) bragging that he could lose only if caught with “a dead girl or a live boy.” (In that context, “girl” and “boy” meant young adults, not children. Child molestation was just unthinkable.)
But that was the 1930’s. The first half has been obsolete since Ted Kennedy’s reelection in the 1970’s, and now no one except the most stick-in-the-mud Republicans cares about homosexual trysts. Molesting children is the only remaining limit.
KH got her bounce before the convention. The question is whether she will fall down to Earth before voting starts next week.
depends on how many mail in votes she get
She got bouncing when she was an unknown new lawyer in California.
The truth is that nobody really knows what the polling looked like because they’ve been engaging in push poles to create opinion rather than measure it. Remember that her popularity is vice prostitute was even lower than the pedophile in Chiefs
As Mew Cat stated KH got her bounce before the convention. She ran a lot of good commercials during the olympics which helped her a lot with those who dont know much about her. I suspect that by late sept, most every independent will know about her far left extremism
I haven’t trusted poles for decades, I will continue to vote for who I think is best, regardless of what the herd believes.
Watch your spelling. I don’t think you meant you are prejudiced against Polish people.
As I said in another comment thread, Michigan is playing BS games and keeping RFK Jr on the ballot citing some stupid statute that says minor party candidates can’t withdraw after nomination (but apparently major party candidates can).
There’s no reason to make such a statute except to play political games.
Is there a previous case of a 3rd party candidate dropping out after the major party conventions? I’m curious whether there is precedent either way, or it’s a one-time decision. Also, if a major party Presidential nominee resigned or died after the conventions, how close to the election could it be before the states refused to reprint the ballots? I can see why they might set the deadline for President later than for a down-ballot race, but since the Constitution does NOT endorse a two-party system, discriminating amongst Presidential candidates seems highly questionable.
There have been several times a dead man was on the ballot in an election, but so far no major party Presidential nominee has ever died or dropped out between nomination and the inauguration. Perhaps the highest-ranking position thus affected was the US Senate. In 2000, John Ashcroft lost his Senate seat to Mel Carnahan, the governor of Missouri, who died three weeks prior to the election and remained on the ballot. (The lieutenant governor became governor and appointed Carnahan’s wife to the Senate seat, and Ashcroft was only unemployed for a few weeks before GW Bush appointed him Attorney General.)
She is totally groovy and with Tim it’s an outta sight unbeatable team. The dawning of a new age of equity, plenty, love and peace awaits!
Her groovy is akin to Liberace wearing flowery bell-bottoms, heavy make-up and singing the same
Tim’s a big rolly polly and if you dropped him, he’d probably bounce. Harris, however, is a heavy duty F-350 Word Salad Generator which if dropped would go “ker plunk”.
And to keep word salad to a minimum, she’s been warned not to let her alligator mouth overload her hummingbird azz.
“Given that their previous candidate was a senile, wizened, octogenarian, any replacement candidate that could walk and talk normally would have increased the party’s enthusiasm.”
Well, they managed to satisfy half those requirements… which is par for a DEI hire.
Obviously, the race is razor-close at the moment. It’s likely going to come down to GOTV. Does the Trump campaign have an GOTV operation that can compete with the institutionalized ballot harvesting schemes in states like PA, MI, WI and even Georgia? I guess we’re going to find out. Trump won in 2016 with only 46.1% of the popular vote (vs Clinton’s 48.1%), eking out narrow victories in PA, MI & WI. The good news is GA adopted a new law in 2022 that really cut-down on ballot drop off locations in a BIG way.
If Harris gets to 49% (or more), it’s probably over. Trump seems to have a hard ceiling of 48%.
Beating back the cheat…
The Arizona Republican Party has filed a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court against Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs… [her] orders designated state-owned facilities, including those managed by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR) and the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (ADJC), as ballot drop-off locations and ordered state authorities to make voter registration forms available and process them respectively…
Republicans… stated that the new orders rip away authority held by county recorders and other local election authorities….“The Arizona law is clear on who can distribute and accept voter registration forms and completed ballots: (1) public assistance or disabilities agencies as defined by statute; or (2) a location/agency as designated by a county recorder (or designee of a county recorder) or justice of the peace. The Governor is nowhere included in this clear line of authority. The same is true for determining voting locations.”
yeah
good find
nothing says a staycation for a lefty like a Corrections Facility
Bares the burden of a reshare…
Turbo Enkamalator.
https://youtu.be/Ac7G7xOG2Ag?si=xb21BKG1VH4KmJmq
Interesting read. I looked at the YouGov poll and you had to go to the bottom of a very long piece to get to the meat of it:
“The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,788 U.S. adults interviewed online from Aug. 22 to 26, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to Nov. 1, 2022, and is ******weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 27% Republican).***** Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.7%.”
They weighed it by 6 points for the Democrats. A classic example of what polls have changed to. From a way to observed opinion to a method of influencing it.
Opt in is the problem, how many people distrust pollsters and any unsolicited caller? I do.
The RCP betting average showed a 50:50 split at the start of the convention and a 53% Harris advantage on aug 28th. (I promised myself I would only check once a week). That’s a bit small to be a bump, I would call it the last step of her ‘honeymoon’ or whatever.
I am a little confused by Nate Silver’s summary. He says Trump has a small electoral advantage and then displayed a list of polls showing Harris leading in most swing states.
There has long been a name for this in markets, it’s what is known as “a dead cat bounce“.
And, in this case, it’s very close to literal. Except that dead cats are smarter and more trustworthy than Komrade Kamala.
There is no bounce, but she is competitive in every swing state, and leading overall. Trump up only 1 in NC is not good.
It has been 40 days since Kamala became the nominee, and yet we have not seen Trump do a blitz online against her.
I am getting annoyed. Trump seems to be running his campaign like it is 2004 , 2000 or even the 90s instead of a digital world that features voting in the next few days instead of on election day only.
The last week is too late for an add blitz to make much of a difference.
The Trump campaign has been indisputably flat-footed on campaign ads. They’re getting crushed and have been getting crushed for two-months. For instance, they didn’t spend a dollar – literally not a dollar – during the Olympics while Harris spent more than $10M. Below is the ad-buy for ads to air moving forward…
AZ:🔵$36.7M🔴$7.8M
GA:🔵$42.2M🔴$32.9M
NV:🔵$21.4M🔴$3.6M
NC:🔵$29.2M🔴$6.4M
I have no idea why Trump is sitting on all that cash. Buying ads in October – which will be both too late and too expensive (it’s always cheaper to pre-buy the September & October ads in early summer) – isn’t going to make a difference when people have been voting for weeks already.
Maybe Trump wants to keep all that cash for himself.
I couldn’t agree more.
I don’t know why people don’t trust Poles, they’re generally good people.
Polls, on the other hand…
If they want her to have a bounce, she will.
There are no accurate polls available in the mass media. There haven’t been for a long time.
To get an idea of what the polls actually show, you’ve goin to watch what the campaigns are doing.