Deep Dive: How Kamala Harris is Polling Against Donald Trump So Far, with Spencer Kimball

hey everyone I'm Megan Kelly welcome to the Megan Kelly show and this deep dive special episode kamla Harris has all but secured her party's nomination using the magic Democratic wand now that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the presidential race and we are starting to learn what Americans think of her her candidacy as she faces former president Donald Trump a brand new poll from Emerson College out today gives us one of our first looks at how kamla Harris is fairing versus Donald Trump in key swing States like Arizona Michigan and Pennsylvania here to break it down for us is Spencer Kimble he's the executive director of Emerson College polling don't miss a moment subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on insta Facebook and X One Texan doctor with zero big Pharma ties is sharing a Breakthrough Medical Discovery and it's about taking charge of your health no flashy big promises he's focused on results now he says a unique protein can strengthen your bones ease joint 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saw last week where the Democrats or Independents were breaking more towards Trump and she seems to have stemmed the tide of the debate loss and bringing the race back to competitiveness uh specifically in Pennsylvania and in Georgia so she as far as I understand basically got the Democrats back to pre-debate numbers for Biden like the the collapse from that colossal performance um has been rectified at least according to your poll yeah that's what we were seeing uh since the debate we saw Trump picking up one to two points in each one of these states every week so remember last time we spoke Arizona was at seven points Georgia was getting up to six points Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were up to five points and we were starting to look at well that is uh President Biden's Pathway to Victory and it was a very small window that he had now the race has been shaken up a little bit and we see a couple of different Pathways with Harris on the top of the ticket okay so it it looks like the following um five swing States uh let's see she's trailing Trump in four of them and tied in one of them in Arizona he's up over kamla five points 49 to 44 in Georgia he's up over Harris by 2 points 48 to 46 in Michigan he's up one point 46 to 45 in Pennsylvania he's up two points 48 to 46 and in Wisconsin they're tied 47% for each person so which of those States has been affected the most by her subbing in for Biden I would say Georgia because last time we spoke I thought Geor was off the table for the Democrats and that really put a lot of pressure on that blue wall to be able to hold both Arizona or to hold Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania if the Democrats lose both Georgia and Arizona so p uh so Georgia now being back at two points is a lot more competitive than the five to six points that we were seeing a couple weeks ago and that's a key state if the Democrats uh are able to get to 270 and who's driving these increased numbers for Harris because as I read the write up of this you pin it to some extent at least on younger voters but we've spent the past two days looking at other polls and numbers that show she actually wasn't doing very well with younger voters which is confusing well uh it's going to take it almost looks like they're rebuilding that Obama Coalition that was kind of falling apart over the last couple of months if you remember in 2008 Obama wins that 18 to 29 year old vote by about 30 points and since 2008 the Democrats have done a pretty good job with that 18 to 29 year old group what we were seeing over the last few months is that group was pretty split uh in some polls we saw that even leading towards Trump uh but now we see that it jump back over the last couple of days where some of those underlying data points now it's not the same in every state so in Wisconsin for example we might see a little bit more struggle with the younger voter but that Trump actually struggles with the older voter a little bit more in Wisconsin but generally speaking the younger voter has come back to a greater extent than where they were when President Biden was on the top of the ticket uh even in March and April prior to the debate performance interesting I mean he was very very old is very very old and we saw Democrats saying from the beginning some two-thirds of them he's too old to be president but I'm going to give you this and this is not just Harry Anton of CNN this has been reflected in some polling since she became the likely person to possibly replace him and then since he dropped out and endorsed her we've been seeing lots of polls showing young people are disillusioned and are leaning either not to voting or more towards Republicans but here's a report we aired this sound bite yesterday of Harry anon on CNN Joe Biden won voters under the age of 35 by 21 points what do we see with KLA harrris well she's still ahead but the margin here is significantly less than what we saw with Joe Biden back in 2020 she's up by just nine points you may make the argument that was better than Biden was doing before he got out but compared to that Democratic Baseline where Democrats have historically in presidential elections at least this Century been carrying that young vote by 20 or more percentage points she is way down from that Democrats say they're more motivated to turn out after Biden left the race well we do see a significant portion of Democrats who say yes 39% the thing I was interested in was it disproportionately younger voters who said that they were more likely to turn out or more motivated to turn out and what we see here is it's 42% not a big difference between 42 and 39% so this idea again that the vice president has unique potential to dig in and get young voters to turn out John it's just not there in the numbers despite all the internet memes that are going around okay can you speak to that Spencer because it sounds like the Emerson poll does not jive with that yeah I would contradict some of that analysis in that the younger voter is the minority voter it's Black and Hispanic votes that are traditionally Democrats and they're the ones who are sitting on the sideline not with Biden they're more likely to come back in line with a Harris on the ticket and that's what we see in our numbers uh it's not necessarily the white vote that's coming back it's those minority votes that uh younger people who are a minority is that what you're saying yeah because minorities are skewed towards the younger demographic they're the newer voters a Hispanic population are disproportionately younger than the older Hispanics because younger ones are a larger population and they're more likely to be registered to vote so that's a group same thing the black population's a little bit more dispersed over the the ages but the minority groups generally are on the younger side and tend to vote Democrat and what we've seen is they've essentially come back into the fold for Harris to to some extent not to that full extent what we saw with Biden in you know 2020 but certainly stronger than what we saw just a few weeks ago can you put a number on it you know he was saying they voted younger people uh 21% for Joe Biden in 2020 and that right now they were leaning towards Harris by only nine percentage points saying that 9% was higher than Joe Biden was you know a couple weeks ago versus 2020 but it's wasn't Gang Busters it wasn't up to the 2030 that people like Obama uh could get in the Democrat Party so can you put a number on what the surge is in these states or just overall based on your polling well I would agree somewhat to that analysis it's definitely lower than the 30 or 20% but it really depends on the state so like the state of Georgia about 20% of their voters are 18 to 29 but in Pennsylvania it's only like 133% of those voters so to win in in Georgia 6040 amongst younger voters that that's important if you're winning 55 45 that's a big you know 10o difference amongst 20% of the electorate so each state is unique the Midwest is an older population where you're not going to see as many of those young votes but that young vote is really important in Georgia uh maybe even in North Carolina uh in the next time we take a look because that's where younger folks are moving in living and we'll see if those numbers increase what we were able to see with essentially what Obama was able to do let's say in Virginia we saw that youth vote drop uh over the last couple of months Obama had built that up 16 you know 12 16 years ago and pretty much handled it I would I would also say that yeah we talk about the 18 to 29 year olds and that is the youth vote but where I see the Democrats are really struggling is the 30 to 39 year olds the people that came in with Obama and then are uh leaving right now the Democrats they're not voting at this same propensity and so that's where Harris is going to have to bring back more of the vote yeah she's got to win that youth vote and she'll win it to some extent um but then the other vote as well and I don't mind to mean to jump around is the new voters the new voters have come in and they're breaking for Trump and we haven't seen that since 72 with Nixon so if new voters start breaking and they're being registered and coming in uh for the Republicans that would shake up obviously the 18 to 29 year olds but we do have to go state by state and look at well you know look at Michigan those younger voters in Michigan they're not necessarily going to Trump but they're going to third parties in in our polling you can see that you know kind of pretty easily between the the head-to-head ballot test and then uh when we add those third parties and to me that would be a problem for Harris uh she needs that youth vote out in Michigan uh to come out for her and we'll see over and it's going to take some time you know this is a new candidacy though she did run for a cup of coffee in 2020 not many people remember any of that and so she'll get out there voters will have to start hearing some messaging and then we'll see how it kind of shakes out after Labor Day uh a couple of other pieces of data The Economist yugov poll registered voters came out yesterday that showed uh Trump with 44 Harris with 41 that poll was taken during the crossover uh the 21st through the 23rd third and Biden B well I guess it was Pelosi I don't know is it was it what was hold on I got to go back and look at my calendar now so that 21st to the 23rd is this past Sunday through Tuesday yes so Trump up three and their poll before that mid July showed Trump up too over Biden the other thing that's in here of course is the assassination attempt right like I don't even know how you pull for that but another massive event that's factored in I guess to some extent in these numbers so what I'm gleaning right now is these numbers are all over the board you know one one day we get a lesson that she's not exciting to younger voters the next day we get a lesson that actually she is kind of exciting to some younger voters who are not into Joe Biden and the overall numbers seem to I think in every poll I've seen show Trump leading by a couple over comma except for one maybe two I've only seen one um that shows kamla Harris over Trump I don't like what does it mean well those National numbers are very important in my opinion uh because the Democrats need to win the national vote so seeing that Trump still has as you mentioned two to three-point lead in those National numbers we're also seeing it reflected in the states remember Arizona is a state where Trump loses by a couple of votes and he's up by Five Points Georgia again a state that he lost but by a couple of votes he's up by two Pennsylvania he loses by a point Michigan he loses by a couple of points now he's up so nationally he lost last time by four four and a half now he's up two to three and you see a little bit of that residual down here at the state levels and as that National number changes over time maybe maybe not it hasn't changed too much in about eight years um we'll see if voters you know switch in and jump on but I think the biggest takeaway is that Trump is still leading Harris at this time in the state level and then obviously in these other polls at the national level Spencer when you were on last you explained to us why we should care about that National number that why we shouldn't just be obsessed with the Electoral College the swing state votes can you explain that again for uh audience members who missed it sure uh that National number um in my opinion is a is a barometer of what's going to happen at theate St level so if we look back in 2016 Clinton wins nationally by about two points but at the state level Trump is able to take it by you know 40 50,000 votes in 2020 Biden gets that National number up to four and a half percent and now he's able to take those State numbers by about 40 45,000 votes now we're into 2024 this is the first time Trump has been up nationally in any of these polls so it'll be interesting to see if these State numbers hold where maybe it's not a 10,000 vote difference it might be a little bit higher in some of these states um at this time so that's why it's important to look at that National number to me the Democrats need to win the national number because of States like New York and California which traditionally vote pretty heavy for the Democrats and give them a like a five to seven million vote Advantage uh just in those two states and then the Republicans have to carry it back it's a little different this cycle with Florida uh being turning more red but uh it's still an important uh number for all of us to consider and then I because if you see low numbers in New York and California uh in terms of turnout for the Democrats it suggests to you there's a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic party Nationwide yeah maybe the a lower tide um and this is what we saw back in 2016 when the results were coming in uh it was a little easier back in 2016 2020 the results were a little you know tougher to follow but in 16 you could see those early you know Kentucky Indiana those states were three four points higher than the polls and then it was a rising tide around the entire country and so as we look at that National poll if Harris is able to bring that back to even or take the lead then I think the Democrats have a chance but if the Republicans are leading the national poll it's hard to imagine how the Democrats you know will be able if they're picking up States like California and New York still by 20 plus points um where where their pathway is going to be but with Harris on the ticket now there is at least an angle because remember the Democrats lost three electoral votes uh because of redistricting so Biden's vote goes from 306 to 303 without even an election happening and those three electoral votes are really big that's like Delaware or Vermont's changing to Republican and so the map is is more in favor of trump and that's why when we were talking last time and saying hey if Georgia and Arizona why was it so important this time as opposed to because now you've lost those three electoral votes so now any one of those blue States you don't have to knock down two blue States you only need to knock down one blue State because of the redistricting and so that's another factor which is different this cycle um for us to keep an eye on so we're still in Late July kamla Harris still has the convention which will continue the quote coronation of her and she has the announcement of her running mate which should provide a further boost to her numbers if she chooses somebody acceptable and you know some of these maybe the Pensylvania Governor Josh Shapiro who people are looking at very closely obviously swing state so in your experience do conventions and the announcement of a running mate provide a decent boost to a candidate and is it sustainable does it last well just last week obviously Trump announced his running mate but then you had Biden dropping out and that took a little bit of that momentum away from what the Republicans were doing at their convention so obviously the Democrats have their plan they're going to try to create momentum and and move the needle in their Direction but the Republicans are going to come out with some messaging as well and try to circumvent some of that and that's going to be interesting to watch over the next four or five weeks as they have to redefine the campaign uh between these new candidates or at least between Harris and Trump and um that's going to be a challenge and we'll see what the messaging is over that time and then from there it'll kind of get into a Groove I presume on what we're going to be talking about in the fall is there any way of knowing through polls whether there's any backlash to the way this was done within the Democrat Party you know that it really was done just by the elites deciding it would be La Harris and even though the messaging from Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeff continues to say ground up ground up not top down people know so is that a factor or no is that just a media Story We we'll see again these things take time for people that kind of you know what if it was one of their candidates that didn't get the nomination and maybe that candidate becomes the VP in which case that will you know kindy to end some of those sour grapes but at this point it looks like the Democrats have kind of rallied around uh Harris about in our polling about 80% of Democrats in each one of these states wanted Harris 10 15% preferred somebody else so there could be a little black black backlash um on that within the party but the idea there is to get them all unified against Trump uh the one issue here is that Trump's favorability is actually stronger than Harris's in a lot of these states so it's going to be an interesting play I don't know if that same Playbook that the Democrats have used for the last couple of Cycles against Trump works as well this cycle uh but obviously time will tell I know it's strange to think about because what could they possibly say about Donald Trump that hasn't been said already you know what whereas she's not exactly fresh meat you know she's been the vice president for four years but she's a lot fresher you know her all of her policy statements and gaffs and so on will be coming back in a very forceful way you can't really do that to Trump as much or at least you know it's not going to have the same effect because people lived it yeah I would agree with you on that uh I mean how much more on Donald Trump could be out there Harris is now going to be attacked in ways that she hasn't been before and now we'll see how she responds to some of her policies and some of those ideas that she has out there and then obviously having to defend this administration's positions um on some of the the issues of the day so right now let me ask something on that so so there's been a debate since he dropped and endorsed her on whether the Republicans message has been it's not the person it's the polic policies it's that's that's the problem that's the reason you shouldn't vote Dem because it's not the person it's the policies but what you're what you seem to be saying is so far it actually was the person for at least you know some decent share of swing state voters it was Joe Biden yeah especially the younger vote the the female vote and the minority vote uh those were three major constituents that were leaving Biden and they weren't necessarily going to Trump they were going the third parties are not going to vote at all but we could see it we could see the Fallout in these numbers every week she's been able to bring that group back in but remember they're still trailing so she'll need a bit of a game Cher to continue to get this momentum and then get over Trump in Pennsylvania Georgia uh Michigan uh those are states that the Democrats need to win in order to get to 270 so can we talk about that because last time you were on we talked about how it wasn't looking so great for the Democrats this is with Biden in the Rust Belt and in in those sort of blue wall states of Michigan um Wisconson and Pennsylvania and now there's been Buzz about how that may or may not be true for Harris she's better than Biden in those States probably but she's going to do she needs to focus not on those States but on the sunb Belt which as far as I understand is Arizona Georgia North Carolina is that like can you walk me through how this calculus goes and whether it's a good bet for them yeah it's interesting because it's going to depend on that VP pick does she go with Mark Kelly and try to bring Arizona back into the fold or does she end up going with maybe a Shapiro or Roy Cooper out of North Carolina try to bring that back into the fold but right now it looks like Arizona is not all that competitive uh it's leaning towards Trump and so with that uh Biden or the Democrats are at 292 in their electoral votes Nevada has been a state the silver state has been leaning towards the Republicans and so that's something to also keep an eye on because there are six electoral votes and while that doesn't necessarily end it for the Dems it definitely puts a lot of pressure on them because now you have uh Pennsylvania that becomes a Battleground um if the Democrats lose Pennsylvania Nevada and Arizona Trump wins if uh before last week when we were talking Georgia was more red and if Georgia had turned red now it's like any one of those States Minnesota Wisconsin Michigan Pennsylvania Virginia any one of those states that turn uh would cost the Democrats and give Trump back the White House and so keeping an eye on Georgia and seeing if Harris is able to kind of create more energy in Atlanta in that Stacy ABS magic that she almost had uh but that seems to have been lost down there so we're going to see if it comes back North Carolina's a state that they're talking about coming back into play I thought North Carolina was the furthest away it was about like seven points for Trump so we're going to see if uh the governor if they go with him out of North Carolina Cooper if that brings that that's 16 electoral votes that would you know change the map because right now it's leaning red um and so each one of these has you know the pluses and minuses but what you're looking at is a field where the Democrats are on a little bit of Defense having to defend all of these states and if any if Arizona goes and Georgia goes then it's then it's really a tough map but if the Democrats with Harris are able to get Georgia back in blue then there's still that pathway if they carry the Midwest um but the B and months yeah the bance is you're giving up the midest um so right exactly because Trump's fighting hard for those States now we got three and a half months to go I know I won't hold you to this because it's just a it's just a guess at this point we don't know but it's an informed guess uh who would you rather be Trump or Harris and how would you place the odds of trump winning oh I think he'd rather be Trump Harris is coming off the bench right now replacing the starter right you had Joe Biden he was the the the president and you're like yeah we're going to put the starter down here for the second half we're going to bring in our bench player and we're going to have her take over that's that's a risky move I mean she was brought on the ticket to balance the ticket you know there's a reason why these VPS are brought on generally it's not to necessarily become the next president so we'll see if she's up for that challenge of you know the presidential Timber that uh she didn't really have to go through the vetting process of the nominating contest and we'll see what happens now that we're in the major leagues and then obviously her vice presidential candidate uh that might impact the race but at this point I think uh the Republicans they're not as strong as they were a week and a half ago uh but I I I still think that Trump's got an advantage at this time is it was it what like 60 40 5248 what would you where would you put it we're social sciences we'll go with 95% confidence uh because that's where the polls are and then we'll see if it changes excellent Spencer thank you so much love talking to you Megan it's my pleasure thanks for having us ah so interesting right the Republicans do not have this in the bag and the race has changed dramatically they both are going to have to fight very hard and every vote is going to count oh I'll see you next time thanks for joining me protein bars can be chewy and dense or so chalky that they crumble apart in your hand but I want to tell you about the launch of magic spoon treats you probably know magic spoon for their popular high protein cereal right that has more than 75,000 fstar reviews well magic spoon has 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