Each Tuesday here at Opinion Today, from now through Election Day, contributing Opinion writer Kristen Soltis Anderson will assess the latest polls to shed light on how voters see the 2024 campaign, the stakes for the country and the issues that matter most to them. At the Democratic National Convention this week, Kamala Harris faces a challenge. She must understand and speak to voter concerns on major issues like the economy without being downbeat. She must highlight her experience as President Biden's right-hand woman without aiding Republicans in their efforts to link her to voter frustrations with Biden's presidency. Essentially, she must explain why she is the right person to tackle the problems of the next four years without being defined by the past four years. A recent ABC News-Washington Post-Ipsos poll shows why Harris needs to seize that opportunity this week. Donald Trump maintains sizable leads over his opponent when voters are asked which candidate they trust more to handle the economy, inflation and immigration. If there's any question about what issues the campaigns think will define the race in battleground states like Georgia, look no further than the ads being aired in the Atlanta media market: a flurry of spots about Harris's record on the economy and immigration from both campaigns. Yes, despite all her momentum, Harris has work to do on these issues, and normally it would be a bad sign for voters to say they think you aren't very influential in the administration in which you serve. Yet in an environment in which voters, just a few months ago, were much more likely to say they'd benefited from Trump's policies than from Biden's, the ability to chart your own course as a candidate is valuable, and Harris has this blessing in disguise: In the ABC-Post poll, only 33 percent of Americans said that Harris has had "a great deal" or "a good amount" of influence over the Biden administration's economic policies, and just 39 percent say the same of Harris on immigration. So far, Republicans' efforts to highlight Harris's early role as Biden's point person on tackling drivers of migration across the southern border don't seem to have had the kind of effect they want — probably need — it to. Harris remains, for the moment, something of a blank slate to many voters. According to the latest CBS News-YouGov polling, more than one in three voters say they don't know what Harris stands for, far more than say that about Trump. (The Democratic Party itself seemed to be behind the times, putting out a platform just before the convention that repeatedly referred to a Biden second term.) Indeed, the most recent shifts in the race seem to be much more about voters' changing attitudes toward Harris than any re-evaluation of Trump. In the ABC-Post poll, Trump has actually gained a point since July, when he was at 43 percent in a multicandidate field including Biden; today he is at 44 percent in a field that includes Harris and others. Nevertheless, Trump went from a slim one-point margin over Biden to a three-point deficit to Harris, with the vice president seemingly absorbing a chunk of voters who may have previously been undecided or leaning toward a third-party candidate. Younger voters and independents in particular are big movers here, showing quite a bit of a shift toward Harris relative to where they stood in the Biden-Trump race. It isn't a stretch to think they would have more malleable opinions of Harris given these groups are known to be somewhat less plugged in when it comes to political news. To the extent there are voters who are still up for grabs, look to these groups for movement as Harris becomes more of a known quantity. This week, the Democratic Party will have de facto control of the airwaves and with it a chance to control the narrative about what kind of president Harris might be. Republicans, meanwhile, are up against a very tight deadline to define Harris on their terms, considering that in some states the first absentee ballots start going out to voters in just a few weeks. Odds and EndsDemocrats have that Obama 2.0 feeling. Republicans have felt strongly and positively about their candidate for some time; Democrats, not so much. But the switch-up at the top of the Democratic ticket has led to a surge in enthusiasm among Democratic voters, according to Pew Research. With the notable exception of protests against the war in Gaza, anyone looking for signs of disagreement or dissent at the convention is likely to be disappointed. But is it 2016 all over again? This weekend, Trump's running mate, JD Vance, hit the airwaves to complain about "fake polls." His argument is that some polls are overstating Harris's lead over Trump, and that "the media" uses these polls to depress Republican voter turnout. I don't find his argument persuasive; why were these same supposedly nefarious outlets happy to put out data showing just how poorly Biden was polling mere weeks ago? But I don't dismiss the suggestion that the polling industry could be on track for another historic miss. Mark Davin Harris of the political polling company Coldspark has looked under the hood at the data in some recent surveys and is worried that the surge in Harris enthusiasm, especially among highly educated Democratic voters, is causing normal weighting practices to fall short when it comes to ensuring representativeness in some surveys. Here's what we're focusing on today:
We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Games Here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle and Spelling Bee. If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com. If you have questions about your Times account, delivery problems or other issues, visit our Help Page or contact The Times.
|
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Opinion Today: Donald Trump needs to move fast to define Kamala Harris
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment