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Harris lead drops to 2 points

Published on 26 Comments on Harris lead drops to 2 points

According to YouGov, Kamala Harris's lead over Donald Trump declined a bit this week:

Aside from random fluctuation, my best guess is that Harris got a slight convention bounce but Trump got a bigger bounce from the RFK Jr. endorsement. The YouGov poll no longer includes him on their list of responses, and his three points appear to have divided mostly between Trump and Other.

POSTSCRIPT: Interestingly, 95% of Harris voters say their mind is made up. Only 92% of Trump voters say the same.

26 thoughts on “Harris lead drops to 2 points”

    2. FrankM

      I've been studying this stock and there are a lot of weird things going on. Trump owns about half of the 200 million shares outstanding, and he's not allowed to sell any of this before Sept 20, leaving 100 million shares available for trading. Maybe less if any of the other principles have similar restrictions. Typical daily trading volume is 6-7 million shares, which means 6-7% of the available stock changes hands every day! That's a lot of churn. Who's doing all this buying? Also, there's about 13% short interest! If he tries to cash out in any real volume he's going to tank the stock price and his now $2 billion share will be a small fraction of that. The short sellers are going to make a killing.

      1. kennethalmquist

        Someone who sold short on May 1 at $45/share has probably paid about $20/share in borrow fees, which erases most but not all of the gains. On around July 1, borrow fees became much more reasonable, and are currently 15%. The number of shares shorted has increased (link below), so something must have happened to the supply. Possibly one of the insiders decided to lend out their shares.

        https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/djt/short-interest

  2. Josef

    Hopefully she'll get a bigger bump after the debate. I hope the Harris/Walz campaign triggers Trump into agreeing to a hot mic debate. It should be relatively easy.

      1. Josef

        I honestly don't know. I hope she mops the floor with Trump in the debate though. She seems eager to do so. And provoking Trump into a tirade of name calling and lying shouldn't be too hard to do.

      3. Jasper_in_Boston

        Why do you suppose there is no post-convention bump?

        We don't know there's been no post-convention bump. For one thing major events can take a while (2 weeks+) to filter into the polling. And for another, Kevin is only citing a single poll. I think he'd be better of citing a reputable polling aggregator, but whatever. Nate Silver and 538.com both have Harris up by about 3.5 points.

  3. Joseph Harbin

    Which of the various YouGov polls are we talking about?
    What's the date range for those who were surveyed?
    Are they registered or likely voters?
    Does the headline "Harris lead drops to 2 points" capture any real change when 4 of the 5 surveys since Harris took the lead at the end of July (per the graph) have her with a 2-point lead?

  4. Jerry O'Brien

    It's not just an endorsement from RFKJr, it's his dropping out. So there were 3% looking for a new home, and only 2% went to Trump, apparently. To look at it another way, Trump+Kennedy lost a point since the week before, from 46% (=43%+3%) to 45% (=45%+0%).

    1. JohnH

      That's right, or maybe it's something else entirely. Or maybe it's nothing at all beyond the usual tiny fluctuation from week to week, or that we've run out of new reasons to hate Trump. And Harris's approval in the chart keeps going up.

      I'm still scared that Trump could win, but this isn't serious data analysis.

  6. FrankM

    "Only 92% of Trump voters say the same."

    Which tells you that 8% of Trump voters are lying. Do you know of any Trump voters who appear persuadable? I've yet to meet a single one.

    I'm not buying the estimates of where the RFK voters are going. First of all, polling about independent candidates is fraught with problems. They always run higher than their actual vote share in the election, for the simple reason that there's no cost to telling a pollster you support that candidate, but actually wasting your vote does incur a cost and a large fraction of those people end up voting for one of the major party candidates. Second, a large fraction of RFK's supporters are "double haters" who will very likely not vote at all in the election. Third, the RFK numbers are so small as to be well within the polling errors. Put it all together and you might as well toss dice to find the answer.

    Polls bounce around. There's nothing new and there's no deep meaning there.

        1. Atticus

          I’m not voting for Trump. (First time, other than a couple local elections, that I will not have voted for a republican.) But Harris’s economic plans are horrid. So not sure if I’ll leave it blank.

          I meant persuadable in that I was persuaded (mainly after Jan 6) to not vote for Trump.

          2. KenSchulz

            Not taxing tips is a stupid idea, IMHO. It’s clearly a position taken to boost Harris’ chances in Nevada; so, thanks, antidemocratic Electoral College. But I doubt it will get through any Congress, since it’s not an issue that moves the needle anywhere else.
            In any case, I doubt I have ever voted for any politician with whom I agreed 100%; but somebody’s going to win each office on the ballot, and I want the person with whom I have the most agreement to get the job.

    2. Jasper_in_Boston

      Which tells you that 8% of Trump voters are lying.

      You find it non-credible that one in twelve Trump voters is open to changing? I wouldn't buy one in four, but one in twelve seems consistent with most of the polling I've seen.

  8. D_Ohrk_E1

    According to respondents, 91% of registered voters will probably or definitely vote this year.

    This is hubris. In 2020, the highest turnout (as % of registered voters) was DC at 77.8%. The highest turnout in Oregon in the last 50 years was 86.5%.

    We're past the conventions; the polls should shift to, or add likely voter polling numbers.

    1. KenSchulz

      I was not surprised to see that TFG’s percentage “held steady” (i.e. he hasn’t expanded his appeal beyond his cult). I’ve been saying here that his ceiling is not far above his floor, and far enough below 50% that he has essentially no chance to win the popular vote. Absent any October (or September) surprise, I expect a waning of enthusiasm for his tired and negative shtick. The opportunity is wide open to bury the old asshole with an effective GOTV campaign.

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