Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
In one week, give or take, Harris has drastically improved the Democrats chances of winning the White House, as well as invigorated the base with a much younger more diverse candidate. Wining the popular vote, does not mean that much when it comes to the Presidency due to the electoral college in the United States, but it is much better than Joe Biden (I predicted last week a Harris/Kelly victory in 2024, so far that prediction is holding up pretty well!).
That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week’s poll before his Sunday exit from the race.
Reuter’s
How Reliable is Ipsos Polling?
Ipsos polling by most accounts is very accurate. Ipsos takes great pains to include Americans from all walks of life. That said however, the polling samples are usually around 4,000 participants, which despite Ipsos’s best efforts, may not accurately reflect the U.S. population of 360 million plus people’s collective public opinion.
Six times a year, Reuters/Ipsos conducts a poll of at least 4,000 respondents over roughly a week. These polls have a margin of error of about 1.5 percentage points for the full sample, with higher margins of error for smaller sub-groups of respondents.
Ipsos touts a margin of error of (+/-) 3%. Historically speaking, they have been close to this margin of error, most of the time, but again, this is a relatively small sample size, but it does seem that Harris has brought significant momentum to the Democratic Party, along with Joe Biden’s historic hand off of all his electors to her. The 2024 Presidential election is still very close though, according to Ipsos.
Kamala Harris Gives Democrats New Hope
Presidential Race 2024
Now that the Presidential Race has changed, some key questions remain. Will the electors in the party support Kamala Harris? What are her chances of winning if she is indeed the nominee? Who might she pick as a running mate? So I thought I would do a little research and share my results on what I found.
Biden Fully Supporting Kamala Harris
The biggest obstacle to Kamala Harris rising to prominence as the Democratic nominee was Joe Biden. With Biden giving Harris what appears to be unwavering support as his choice of nominee, it is likely that the other Democratic electors who were going to cast their votes in favor of Biden after Biden swept most of the primary elections, to Harris, more than likely. Will she get all of their support, not likely, but will she get a majority? I think so.
The Biden campaign formally renamed itself “Harris for President,” giving her immediate access to an account that had $86 million in cash at the end of June. On an internal call, the Biden campaign’s leaders told staff members that they would now work for Ms. Harris.
Can Kamala Harris Defeat Trump
If the election were today, most of the current polling tends to favor Trump significantly. After Trump miraculously survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, his polling numbers have improved, but the election is not today.
One CBS News/YouGov poll conducted last week gave Harris a slight edge: Trump led Harris by three points (51%-48%), while leading Biden by five (52%-47%) among likely voters (the poll’s margin of error was 2.7 points).
Forbes
What Could Give Harris The Lead?
Millennials are the largest demographic of voters. Younger voters may feel more energized by a younger candidate, perhaps the chance to do something historic such as elect the first female President and a female President with a African-American and Asian American background could alter the race in a major way. Voter turnout for Biden in 2020 was largely a referendum on Trumpism. Biden was not the most popular candidate already due to his age, less than perfect diction skills, and being a career politician.
She could help shore up support with vital voter blocs: A recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found Harris outpacing Biden among Black voters, in a notable improvement on her performance four years ago, even as it suggested she’d struggle to consolidate Democratic support.
If Harris is seen as a viable option to Trump, she should benefit from the anti-Trump vote, as well as be able to pick up votes in many key demographics including: women, minorities, and possibly independent voters. Harris will certainly not be intimidated by debating former President Trump and I think it will be difficult for Trump to attack her the way he typically does and not have it come off looking badly for him.
So in short, there are many ways that Harris could makeup the current gap in polling, or at least make more difficult for Trump. The polling in most cases is within (+/- )three percent, which really is not much. Trump’s lead could vanish faster than you can say, “Make America Great Again”, if the right conditions arise.
Who Would Harris’s Vice-President Possibly Be?
Harris, assuming she becomes the nominee, which in all likelihood, she will has a nice repertoire of candidates to choose from as a running mate. She has Ben Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania who is only fifty-one years old and has a reputation for being an excellent communicator. Remember what I said about young voters being key?
Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s governor has strong support in the vital swing-state of North Carolina. Gretchen Whitmer, the popular democratic governor of Michigan could help deliver the vital state of Michigan to Democrats and be part of an all female Democratic ticket.
Andy Beshar, only 46 years old, is a voting rights advocate who managed to re-register 180,315 black Kentuckian voters who had been illegally removed from the voting registry because a database called “Choicepoint” removed all felon voters from the voter rolls. The only problem was, it also threw out many people who happened to be black and never committed a felony (Los Angeles Times).
Don’t Forget About Mark Kelley
Mark Kelley should not be counted out as a vice-presidential pick. Kelley won a hotly contested U.S. Senate state in Arizona, another key battleground state. Kelly has a strong military background so could lend a lot of support to Harris with military voters, a key Trump demographic.
Final Thoughts
The Democrats have yet to have their convention yet. It is not going to happen for another month. I am sure there will be endless polling and strategizing about how to close the perceived gap in polling data. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens. I am going to go ahead and predict a Harris/Kelly victory in November If Trump has a savvy challenger. Right now Harris is a two to one underdog in Vegas, maybe it is time to place some bets 🙂
Discussion Questions
- How reliable is public opinion polling?
2. Does Harris really have a chance to win?
3. Will Harris build momentum similarly to Barack Obama and run away with the election?
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What are your thoughts on this?