ExpressLane
Verified User
How the debate didn’t boost Harris, according to our polling expert
Kamala Harris didn’t get much of a post-debate bounce.
Instead of taking a clear lead over Donald Trump, the polls have shifted only slightly in the vice president’s favor — especially in the battleground states — even though voters overwhelmingly crowned her the winner of the high-stakes showdown. It’s nowhere near enough to change the underlying reality: Harris and Trump are still on a collision course for a very close finish in November.
The debate was a huge chance for Harris to prove her mettle on stage with Trump, facing off for the first and likely last time. And by all measures she exceeded expectations, with large majorities calling her the stronger candidate on stage. In a New York Times/Siena College poll, two-in-three likely voters, 67 percent, said she did well at the debate; just 40 percent said the same of Trump.
And a huge swath of voters saw Harris’ decisive victory: Some 67 million Americans watched, on track to be the second-biggest TV audience for a single event this year — behind only the Super Bowl.
But surveys point to just a slight Harris bump, with national polls showing the Democrat’s lead has grown by about 1 percentage point since the day of the debate — even including national polls from NBC News and CBS News on Sunday giving Harris a mid-single-digit lead. Across three major polling averages, Harris’ national lead — which ranged between 1.1 and 2.5 points on Sept. 10 — is now between 2.2 and 3 points, after Sunday’s new surveys were added.
There’s also been an avalanche of battleground state data released over the past few days showing an even more modest improvement for Harris. Dive into the seven core states, and it’s clear that Harris’ lead is still remarkably small and fragile — particularly considering how pollsters have underestimated Trump in recent elections.
In all, Harris has average leads of 1 point or greater in only two battleground states. In the other five, at least one polling average shows the race within a single point.
========================================
Trump is winning the battle ground states. We can't afford 4 more years of Harris.