NYT: Harris Had Stronger Debate, Polls Find, but the Race Remains Deadlocked

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Richard Stengel
My favorite statistic in this morning’s NYT poll is that by and large the only group of voters who didn’t think Trump lost the debate were those who didn’t watch it.

Harris Had Stronger Debate, Polls Find, but the Race Remains Deadlocked

Kamala Harris holds an edge over Donald J. Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. But new surveys found that the race remains a tossup nationally.

By Shane Goldmacher and Ruth Igielnik
Sept. 19, 2024, 5:04 a.m. ET



Kamala Harris overwhelmingly impressed voters in her debate with Donald J. Trump, a new set of polls from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College found, but she has failed so far to seize a decisive advantage in the presidential campaign.

The race is deadlocked nationally. Yet in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, Ms. Harris has a lead of four percentage points — a slight edge that is unchanged since early August. She has reassembled much of the core Democratic coalition in the state, winning the support of Black voters, younger voters and women there.

[Combined, the two polls are a bit of a puzzle, Nate Cohn writes.]

The vice president received far stronger reviews of her debate performance last week than did Mr. Trump, with 67 percent of U.S. likely voters saying she did well compared with 40 percent for him. A majority of voters in every racial group, age bracket and education level — even white voters without a college degree, who are typically the former president’s most loyal demographic — gave her a positive review.



But even that was not enough to jostle a race that appears destined to become a battle of inches this fall, after a summer of tumult and upheaval.

/snip

[Johnny2X2X]

1. This showed Trump ahead in previous polling

Been a weird outlier this cycle for an otherwise well respected poll. Wonder what they changed or what is so different with them.

[rzemanfl]

2. Why the continual sane washing?

[displacedvermoter]

3. So every other poll, including the Fox Poll which has

Harris at 50 percent, is wrong? Waiting for smarter people to step in and explain.

[Self Esteem]

5. When you factor MOE, this poll really isn't different from the FOX News poll.

Both are statistical ties.

[displacedvermoter]

8. I have always factored a level of bias into

Fox polls, and now I have to factor that same level of bias into NY Times polls, I guess.

[ratchiweenie]

4. Oh please, the NYT is fast reaching Fox News territory. Does anyone believe anything they say anymore? I don't.

[Dennis Donovan]

6. I'm usually loathe to post polls, especially NYT polls...

...but the tweet offered an interesting stat, so posting a link (and a brief transcription) to the NYT poll was obligatory (and, for those who don't have a NYT subscription, I used the link from archive.today )

[bigtree]

7. the race is not deadlocked

...Kamala Harris has the ONLY momentum in this race.

Trump is dead in the water and declining.

Link to tweet

[NYC Liberal]

10. Yep. Trump has hit his ceiling, whereas Harris continues to grow her numbers.

[Abnredleg]

9. Everyone seems to be ignoring the NYT PA poll

That has Harris up by 4 in PA. This doesn’t seem to make sense but Nate Cohn, the NYT pollster has an explanation.

What’s clear is that recent results from higher-quality polls are very different from those of the last presidential election. If true, it would suggest that Mr. Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College, relative to the popular vote, has declined significantly since 2020.

This wouldn’t come from nowhere: Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote that there were signs that Mr. Trump’s Electoral College advantage edge was fading, including in the 2022 midterm elections. In fact, today’s poll result is reminiscent of our polling ahead of the midterms, which found Republicans leading nationally but Democrats running strong in Pennsylvania and other battlegrounds. It was hard to believe given recent history — I didn’t believe it, and neither did others pollsters I spoke with — but it turned out to be right.

We will re-examine the case for a fading Trump Electoral College advantage soon, including a dive into the geographic distribution of his strength in Times/Siena national surveys over the last year.


https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/upshot/harris-trump-poll-pennsylvania.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L04.HerV.MHlVIXX38Lny&smid=url-share

[Polybius]

11. Some say debates don't effect polls

I never believed that before.