View Source | September 8, 2024 12:58 pm
ANYT/Siena poll published Sunday shows Donald Trump leading Kamal Harris by 1 point — 48 percent to 47 percent — among likely voters.
The Times’ Nate Cohn and his colleagues have published the first high-quality survey since Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the ticket that suggests the VP’s hot streak may be coming to an end, according to an analysis by Politico of the polling.
The Times poll, like any single poll, we’ll have to wait to see if it’s validated by other research in the coming days. The debate on Tuesday could also scramble things in some new way, so we don’t want to read too much into this morning’s numbe
But Cohn, who says “the result is a bit surprising,” offers some wise analysis about why the poll may be a leading indicator of “a reversion back toward” Trump:
- Trump remains popular,with a 46 percent approval rating — which is better than where he stood in either of his last two presidential campaigns.
- Trump has the edge over Harris when voters were asked generally which candidate is better on whatever was their top issue.
- In what Cohn calls “one of Mr. Trump’s overlooked advantages,”the Times poll says voters see the former president as closer to the center than Harris. This has to be a bitter pill for the Harris campaign to swallow, given how much work it has done since she took over as the Democratic nominee to occupy the center and, as Cohn points out, given some prominent issues where Trump is objectively not in the mainstream, such as election denialism.
“The honeymoon is officially over,” Trump spokesperson Jason Miller told Playbook Sunday morning, “and Kamala Harris has been exposed as a Radical Left individual who owns the destruction of our economy and our border.”
