CHRIS CRUCIAL: Today is Kamala Harris' best polling day of the campaign 📊

PLUS:

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1. A very good day for Kamala

Polling goes up. Polling goes down. But right now, Kamala Harris is in the best polling position of her campaign.

Consider:

• The newest Morning Consult national poll has Harris at 51% to 46% for Donald Trump, the largest lead for the Vice President ever in Morning Consult polling.

• A new Monmouth University national poll has the race 49% Harris, 44% Trump

• A USA Today/Suffolk University poll in Pennsylvania has Harris up three — 49%-46%.

• For the first time in 3(!) years, Harris’ average favorable rating is now higher than her average unfavorable rating

  

And it’s not just TODAY. A look back at recent head-to-head national polling paints a clear picture: Harris’ lead in post-debate polling looks more like 4-5 points than 2-3 points.

That’s a LOT of data all saying, basically, the same thing. Which is this: Kamala Harris is now clearly and consistently ahead in national polling.

Now, before Democrats celebrate, it’s worth remembering a point I have made many times in this space: For Harris (or any Democrat) to win the electoral college vote, she needs to be ahead in national polling by at least three points. (That’s due to the clear GOP tilt of the electoral college at the moment.)

And, remember this: In 2016 and 2020, Trump overperformed what the national polling average suggested he would receive in the popular vote. In 2016, that overperformance was 2 points; in 2020, it was nearly four points.

Writing about the state of the race today in the New York Times, Republican pollster Kristin Soltis Anderson noted:

If you look at the polling averages from a variety of different sources, in the seven battleground states that receive the greatest attention, the race is extremely close. Mr. Trump tends to hold a negligible lead in some of the Sun Belt tossup states, as Ms. Harris does in Wisconsin and Michigan. Neither candidate leads by more than two points in any of those states. Pennsylvania, the biggest prize of them all, consistently shows a difference in the tenths of a percentage point.

All true! And all worth considering as we think about this race and where it is headed in the next 7 weeks. I do NOT believe that Harris has the race in the bag — or anywhere close to it. I still expect polls to move around a bit as lower-information voters begin to engage in the race.

But what we can absolutely say today is this: With 49 days left in the race, Harris is where she needs to be to win.

2. Harris’ media strategy

Kamala Harris is preparing to do more media. But not — really — mainstream media.

The New York Times has the story:

During her 2020 campaign and early in her vice presidency, some of Ms. Harris’s biggest missteps came during unscripted encounters with journalists. To avoid taking chances, she has granted only six interviews in the 58 days since President Biden withdrew from the race, three with friendly radio hosts. Even the press-averse Mr. Biden took more questions in the final two months of his campaign than Ms. Harris has in what is nearly the first two months of hers.

Her team says this is about to change, promising a series of appearances across an array of media venues, including local and national outlets, podcasts, radio stations and daytime talk shows…

…Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have concluded that the old-school strategy of interviews with broadcast networks and national newspapers may not be worth the risk, given that voters increasingly get their election news from a variety of less traditional sources, like TikTok influencers or celebrity-hosted podcasts.

That last paragraph, in particular, is critical. We may look back at this election cycle as the beginning of the end of the dominant influence of the mainstream media.

The idea of the media as gatekeepers has already eroded massively, with the rise of social media and individual content creators on YouTube, TikTok and the like.

Campaigns see no comparative advantage to talking to, say, CNN as opposed to a liberal podcaster with a huge following — and who won’t ask the candidate any particularly tough questions.

Is that a good thing for transparency? Or the testing of people seeking the most powerful office in the country? No way. But, here we are.

3. The race is Donald Trump’s to lose (and he’s losing it)

Republicans should win the 2024 election. But, Donald Trump isn’t winning. And that’s because of, well, him.

I explain why in today’s video on my YouTube channel. Subscribe!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“We do need more people on my detail because we have 50, 60,000 people showing up to events..other people don’t have that.” — Donald Trump, turning his previous assassination attempt into a crowd size argument

ONE GOOD CHART

This chart — via Flowing Data — suggests I am going to work at least another decade before I retire!

SONG OF THE DAY

Twenty years ago this week, Arcade Fire released “Funeral,” my favorite of their albums and, I would argue, one of the best and most important albums of that decade. Every song on the album is a gem. This is “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).”

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