Harris is up but Trump might be stronger behind the polls

With less than 60 days before the 2024 presidential election — and on the eve of the first debate between Vice President Harris and former President Donald Trump — polls suggest that this presidential election may be the closest in modern history.  

As of Labor Day, national polling averages aggregated by both FiveThirtyEight (Harris +3) and RealClearPolitics (Harris +2) show the race to be effectively tied. That’s a marked improvement for Democrats from just a few weeks ago, when Biden was the nominee. 

Harris’s polling surge has led some, including The Telegraph, as well as Bloomberg’s Michael Sasso and Mark Niquette, to predict that the vice president and Democrats will win. But while not discounting the fact that Harris does lead nationally, and that Democrats are significantly stronger than they were with Biden atop the ticket, I do not agree with the Telegraph or Sasso and Niquette.

Far from suggesting that Harris has this race “in the bag,” the data indicate that Trump may in fact be in a much stronger position than the topline, national numbers suggest. 

It is important to note that national polling obscures the advantage Republicans have in the Electoral College. Harris’s slight national lead, far from being insurmountable, suggests an incredibly tight race that Politico projects will be decided in a “smaller-than-usual number of states.” 

Swing state polling — considerably more revealing than national polls — also indicates an incredibly close race. As the Washington Post notes, Harris leads in the Blue Wall states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — while Trump leads in three others — Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina — and the two are tied in Nevada. 

There is one vitally important factor that suggests Trump may be in a more advantageous position than it appears. 

Indeed, not only does Trump tend to outperform national polling generally, but as Steven Shephard notes in Politico, the states where Harris is ahead are also the states where polling has “underestimated Trump in the past two elections.” 

Eight years ago, the final RealClearPolitics average showed Trump trailing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 3 points — roughly the same lead Harris currently has — yet Trump won in the Electoral College. 

And in 2020, Biden’s actual margin of victory in the popular vote — 4 points — was nearly half of what Reuters/Ipsos projected just days before the vote, (Biden +7 points), and, as we now know, the race was considerably closer, coming down to roughly 100,000 votes in just a handful of states. 

There are legitimate reasons to think the former president can do it again. 

TIPP Insight’s September tracking poll shows that, while Harris has a 3-point lead in a head-to-head matchup (48 percent to 45 percent), Trump may be in a stronger position than those topline numbers suggest.  

According to that poll, compared to 2020, Trump has drastically improved his support among minority voters, including double-digit increases among Black voters (12 percent vs. 23 percent) and Hispanic voters (23 percent to 33 percent).  

In that same vein, attempting to account for the “silent Trump vote” which has contributed to the former president’s ability to outperform polling, TIPP asked registered voters which candidate they “thought their neighbors are voting for.”  

On that metric, Trump held a 4-point lead (43 percent to 39 percent), underscoring the very real possibility that a silent Trump vote plays a role in the election’s outcome. 

To be sure, with the race projected to be razor-thin, tomorrow’s debate will be absolutely critical, as both sides will want to seize the momentum for the campaign’s final sprint.  

Trump must tie Harris to the current Biden administration by focusing on their record on the issues — economy, immigration and crime — while avoiding resorting to simply insulting Harris.  

On the other hand, voters will want to see if Harris can outline a new way forward, independent of Biden. To do this, she will have to give specifics on the policies she intends to pursue — which, to her credit, she has done more of in recent days, even if more are needed.  

Further, Harris must rebut Trump’s attacks in a positive way, while also making a compelling case for her administration that excites young voters while moving working-class white voters in her direction.

Going into the pivotal debate, critical Democratic voting blocs are considerably more enthusiastic about Harris’s candidacy than they were for Biden’s. The most significant increases are among Democrat-leaning independents (+16 points), registered Democrats and ideological liberals (+15 each), Black voters (+14), Hispanic voters (+12) and voters under 30 years old (+8) according to Economist/YouGov polls, one conducted before Biden stepped aside and another in recent days. 

This is not a new development, rather it is a confirmation of a trend I’ve previously noted in this publication. The fact that Harris’s gains with these core constituencies is evident in polls conducted throughout multiple weeks suggests that this momentum may be enduring. 

Of course, the major unknown in this campaign is independents.  

The vice president now has a considerable lead among independents in six of seven states, including greater than 6-point margins in Georgia (54 percent to 38 percent), Wisconsin (52 percent to 43 percent), Pennsylvania (48 percent to 40 percent) and Arizona (51 percent to 45 percent), per recent Hill/Emerson polling. 

Ultimately, the polling data are clear: While Harris’s current lead is worth noting, this will be an extremely close race through election day. Also, as he’s demonstrated repeatedly, Trump is by no means out of this race, and in fact, may actually be stronger than many predict. 

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant and the founder and partner at Schoen Cooperman Research. His latest book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”