Polling is a useful tool in politics, if somewhat blunt and slow, and this weekend Democrats were taking no small comfort in an ABC/Ipsos survey showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by 4 points nationally.
But the important thing about this poll is not the margin. After all, Rasmussen has Trump up by 2 points. Nobody knows which is right. What’s important is that on Aug. 13, this same ABC poll also showed Harris up 4. Put another way, Harris’ momentum isn’t just gone, it’s been gone for a while.
I first clearly felt the air escaping the Harris balloon a little more than a fortnight ago, in San Francisco of all places, where one would think she’d be viewed as a hometown hero. But already, from almost everyone I met, there were creeping questions as to what she stands for, what she would do as president.
We have all seen the viral videos, even from the Democratic National Convention, of delegates asked what their favorite Harris policy is, only to stare off into the distance, looking for an answer that isn’t there as if they had been asked to conjugate some word in ancient Greek.
I have now seen this expression more times than I can count, in red states, in blue states, in suburb, city and small town, even many of those committed to vote for the vice president admit it is kind of like buying a political scratch-off ticket. They aren’t sure what they are going to win.
Now, make no mistake, from the time that Nancy Pelosi shoved President Joe Biden, face first, off of the stage until just before the Democrats gathered in Chicago, the momentum was there, the vibes were real, and Harris’ numbers were going up.
I felt that distinctly, and palpably in the Democrats I spoke to, who had felt a kind of doom and gloom surrounding Grandpa Joe, but vibes are funny things and they tend to run out of steam. In fact, just after Trump survived his assassination attempt, it was Republicans who were convinced that the image of a bloodied and defiant Trump had already won them the election.
But not so fast.
So why did the wheels fall off of Harris’ vibe bus just as the joyride was getting started? There are a few missteps to point to, including her obstinate and bizarre refusal to answer questions or do interviews.
This is where the slow nature of polling becomes a problem. For two weeks, I were told by the liberal media that Harris didn’t need to do any interviews. She was surging, they promised. But she wasn’t.
And in that period, almost without fail, every voter I talked to said she needed to start answering questions. Today, it sure looks like the sponge bath she and Gov. Tim Walz received on CNN last week is too little, too late.
The bigger, related problem for Harris is that she simply does not have political chops. A candidate with political chops can do three interviews a day without breaking a sweat, they thrive on the unscripted moment that can be turned to their advantage.
Harris has none of these abilities, and she didn’t have to. Nobody without political chops and top notch instincts can win a competitive presidential primary, because they lose to better candidates, but Harris never had to face any other candidates and that lack of battle testing is showing its ugly head.
As the first orange leaves flutter groundward this week, we find ourselves where we were before Joe Biden’s inability to serve was spelled out in giant neon. This race is a toss up, the electorate is as divided as ever, and we are basically going into the fourth quarter all tied up.
For Donald Trump and JD Vance who have now blunted the short-lived Harris surge, this means more of the same, staying in the public eye as much as possible. You wouldn’t be surprised to see either of them with giant scissors at the grand opening of a Dairy Queen.
Harris and Walz, on the other hand, need a Second Act. Kamala describing how she makes collard greens and Tim eating pork chops on a stick at the state fair isn’t going to cut it. The American voters have questions, a lot of them, but do these untested Democratic candidates have any answers? We will soon find out.