Ex-Bush strategist warns polls are 'underestimating Harris' as enthusiasm 'skyrockets'

14 August 2024

The Bush 2004 re-election chief strategist says current polling, which shows Vice President Kamala Harris beating Donald Trump nationally including in all but one of seven swing states, is still underestimating the public’s support for the Democratic presidential nominee as enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz ticket is spiking across the country.

Former Republican Matthew Dowd, now a Democrat, on Wednesday wrote, “my sense from watching politics/polls for the last 40 years is many of the polls right now are underestimating Harris support. And this is because they haven’t adjusted the models to take into account Democratic enthusiasm and Dems being larger share of vote than a month ago.”

The Cook Political Report last week announced it had moved its current predictions in three swing states toward Democrats, but still in the “toss up” category. Cook Political’s senior editor and elections analyst Dave Wasserman writes the “latest battleground polls show Harris erasing Trump’s leads.”

Dowd suggests those too are off, adding, “much has changed in last two weeks, all to the positive for Harris.”

He writes, “one thing to keep in mind with latest Cook Political report swing state polls, they are a lagging indicator of where race is. Polls came out of field on august 2nd, 12 days ago. so releasing them today is kind of a waste of time since they estimate where race was two weeks ago.”

Despite Dowd’s caution the Monmouth University poll taken August 8-12 shows a massive spike in Democratic voter enthusiasm. From June to August Democratic voters’ enthusiasm went from 46% to 85%, while Republican voter enthusiasm over the same time period stayed flat at 71%.

“Harris has higher favorability ratings than either Trump or Biden, which means there has been in a decline in the number of double haters, that is voters who dislike both nominees,” the Monmouth University poll notes. “Harris also has a clear advantage over Trump in being seen as having the necessary stamina for the job and matches or slightly edges her Republican opponent on understanding people’s concerns, representing American values, and bringing about change.”

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