Kamala Kicks Off Campaign Behind in Presidential Race

On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. Unless voters’ attitudes change, however, replacing Biden with Harris won’t solve all the Democrats' electoral problems, as polls indicate Harris isn’t doing much better than Biden in her matchup against Trump.

The latest poll from CBS News, conducted from July 16 to July 18 with 2,247 likely voters, found that in the head-to-head matchup between Trump and Harris, Trump led Harris by three points, 51% to 48%. In the Trump-Biden matchup, Trump led by five points, 52% to 47%. The RCP Averages on Sunday also showed Harris performing slightly better than Biden against Trump, with Biden trailing Trump by three points and Harris trailing by 1.9 points.

However, looking at the specific polls, the difference between the two candidates' performance vanishes. Since the first presidential debate on June 27, there have been 11 polls that polled both the head-to-head matchups between Biden and Trump, as well as Harris and Trump. Of those 11 polls, three showed Harris and Biden tied in their performance against Trump, three showed Harris outperforming Biden, and five showed Biden outperforming Harris. This data indicates that the difference in performance between Biden and Harris in nationwide polling is negligible.

Last week, InsiderAdvantage also conducted a poll from July 15 to July 16 in three swing states: Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, with 800 likely voters per state. In every one of the three states, Biden performed better than Harris. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s lead jumped from four points against Biden to seven points against Harris, from seven points to 10 points in Nevada, and from five points to six points in Arizona. The percentage of people voting “other” also increased on average from 4% in the Trump-Biden matchup to 7% in the Trump-Harris matchup.

The InsiderAdvantage poll was conducted before Harris was endorsed by Biden as the nominee. InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt Towery noted in the polling results that “it is important to note that a vice president who is not the party nominee (or presumptive), tested against the other party’s actual nominee, may yield weaker numbers than a ballot test should both be their respective party’s candidate,” indicating that Harris might fare better in polls in coming days as voters acknowledge Harris as the presumptive nominee.

The New York Times also conducted a poll in a few potential swing states that measured Trump against both Biden and Harris. In Pennsylvania, Trump did better against Biden, 48% to 45%, than against Harris, 48% to 47%, among 872 likely voters polled from July 9 to July 11. Harris also did better in Virginia, leading Trump by five points, 49% to 44%, compared to Biden, who led by three points, 48% to 45%, with 661 likely voters from July 9 to July 12.

Considering all this data, both Biden and Harris have performed similarly poorly against Trump in recent polls, although some suggest Harris does slightly better. However, all polls indicate that Harris trails Trump both in swing states and nationwide. In the next one to two weeks, polls will reveal if Harris’s position as the likely nominee improves her standing or if she will need to gain significant support over the next 100 days leading up to the election.