Staff Reports
Pollsters have become the heralds of a rather inconvenient truth for Vice President Kamala Harris: she’s experiencing a significant level of unpopularity among voters who are losing patience with her lackluster pitch that boils down to “vote for me, I’m not Joe Biden.” As the old saying goes, sometimes being the second choice is just not enough. According to Gallup, more and more Americans are starting to view Harris less favorably, while former President Donald Trump’s stock seems to be rising faster than a rocket ship.
Recent polling has made it clear that Harris’s popularity is on a steady decline, with a notable 5% drop in favorable opinions, while Trump has managed to flip the script and gain a matching 5%. This shift comes with a margin of error of 2.5%, which indicates that the changes might not just be noise but show a real trend. What’s more alarming for Harris supporters is that she has lost a staggering 25% of independent voters in just one month. It has become painfully evident that only 35% of these unaffiliated voters see her in a positive light, while a much more impressive 44% lean towards Trump.
🚨 JUST IN: President Trump now has a HIGHER favorability rating than Kamala Harris among INDEPENDENTS, and all adults in the latest Gallup poll.https://t.co/gY9VeNimwb
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) September 18, 2024
This decline in Harris’s appeal has come in the wake of her nomination by the Democratic Party, an event her supporters anticipated would create a lasting surge in her favorability. Instead, the expected “honeymoon” phase fizzled out faster than a poorly executed campaign strategy. Independent voters, those elusive creatures that often determine elections, seem to have decided that the glam and glitz of Harris’s campaign aren’t enough to distract them from the reality of her performance.
Despite waging a fundraising battle where she has outspent Trump, Harris is embroiled in fierce contests across critical battleground states. Just this week, Trump has taken a slight lead in Pennsylvania—a state that many are closely watching as a potential decider in the upcoming election. He also previously edged out a lead in Wisconsin, which Biden held four years ago. When Harris does pull ahead, as she has done in traditionally blue Virginia, it only falls within the margins of error—hardly a resounding endorsement. Even Nate Silver, known for his political forecasting prowess, is giving Trump increasingly favorable odds of victory, showing a range from 53.1% to as high as 62% compared to Harris’s predictable 46.6%.
In an attempt to regain some ground, Harris has pledged to engage more with the press, albeit on her own terms. This past week, she held an hourlong discussion with members of the National Association of Black Journalists on a variety of hot-button issues. However, this was a far cry from spontaneous dialogue; critics noted that her previous interview with CNN’s Dana Bash felt more like a scripted performance than an authentic discussion. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, Trump is busy navigating truly harrowing circumstances, having survived a second assassination attempt while managing to keep his cool—something the Vice President could surely learn from. With Harris trying to shake hands while avoiding hard questions, it seems like Trump continues to thrive, even when gunfire surrounds him.
