MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki said Vice President Kamala Harris’ popularity has drastically taken a downturn in just a matter of weeks before the election.
A current CNBC poll found Trump claiming the national lead against Harris 48% to 46% in October after he had been trailing the vice president in previous months, Kornacki said on “Chris Jansing Reports.” Harris’ lead has waded at the same time as her positivity ratings have dropped since September, as her negative rating is currently ten points higher than her positive rating.
“I think the bigger picture story, this suggests as well in our NBC poll, it asks about the basic perception of the two candidates here. Do you have a positive or negative feeling toward Trump, toward Harris and you can see right here, neither one of them has a greater positive than negative. They’re both not that popular. But Trump, you can see the gap here, 42% positive, he is 6 points underwater on this question. Harris, 39% positive, 49% negative, she’s ten points negative on this question.”
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Harris polled above water on the positive and negative scale throughout the first couple of months of her campaign, but those numbers have since fallen drastically, Kornacki said. He said Harris’ drop in popularity likely has a “linkage” to her decline in the national polls.
“And the significance here is the trajectory of the Harris campaign on this sort of feelings thermometer. When she first got in the race, she first entered, she basically was in the same ballpark as Trump on positive and negative, after about six weeks as a candidate, she had actually in our poll moved above water on this question, a couple weeks ago we were polling this and she had a higher positive than negative and she had established an advantage. But now, our NBC poll a couple weeks ago and now this CNBC poll both find that this advantage that she seemed to have established here back in September on this question, is gone and she’s back in that underwater territory with Trump again.”
The vice president’s media blitz with mostly friendly outlets throughout the month of October occurred at the same time that her popularity waned. Kornacki pointed out during an Oct. 14 segment that Harris’ positive rating dropped five points in October in comparison to the previous month, while her negative rating jumped from 45% in September to 49%.
Harris, who joined the top of the ticket in mid-July, pulled ahead of Trump for several weeks while she refused to participate in a sit-down interview or hold a press conference.
Trump is leading Harris nationally 47% to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal poll published Thursday. The former president also held a 0.8 point lead against Harris across every swing state as of Friday, according to RealClearPolling averages.
Polling results historically underestimated Trump’s support on a national level and in swing states throughout the 2016 and 2020 elections, CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Thursday.
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