RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/28/wheres-kamalas-convention-bounce/

Two days ago, Nate Silver, the media’s favorite polling “expert” who on election day in 2016 gave Hillary Clinton a 71% chance of winning, said polls had Kamala Harris 5 points ahead of Donald Trump and that “our best guess is that her lead will increase further, especially given that almost none of the polling was done after her strong acceptance speech on Thursday.”

Of course, Silver was hardly alone. The leftist media was fully expecting a big bounce in Harris’ poll numbers.

So, where is Kamala’s big convention bounce?

The Morning Consult found Harris’ lead over Trump unchanged since last Thursday.

A Yahoo/YouGov poll, which was also conducted after the convention, found that “if Harris got a ‘bounce’ from the DNC, it was a very small one — too small to alter the fundamentally deadlocked nature of the 2024 contest.”

The RealClearPolitics average had Harris at 48.3% last Monday. It is currently at 48.4%. But her lead over Trump actually shrank slightly, from 1.6 points last Monday to the current 1.5.

The FiveThirtyEight average had Harris at 46.7% last Monday, and 47.1% this Monday. It also shows that her lead over Trump has declined since the convention ended last Thursday, going from 3.7 on Aug. 23 to 3.4 now.

And, Harris’ odds of winning went from 51% chance on Aug. 19 to 49% today, according to Polymarket. Trump’s went from 47% to 50%.

How could this happen? The media spent all last week, telling us that her joyous campaign was resetting the race! That the convention was brilliant!! That Tim Holz was amazing!!! That her speech was Obama-esque!!!! And that Trump was foundering under the Democrats’ assault!!!!!

Besides, candidates almost always get a big bounce after their four-day infomercials. Trump got a 3-point bounce and Hillary gained 2-points in 2016. Barack Obama gained 4 points after his 2008 convention. John McCain’s numbers went up by 6 points. George W. Bush’s shot up 8 points. (These numbers are from The American Presidency Project, which compared poll averages on the Monday of the convention week to the Monday following the convention week.)

Mark Mitchell, the head pollster for Rasmussen Reports, which shows Trump’s lead widening slightly after the convention ended, posted on X that: “Maybe it was RFK. Maybe the glow wore off. But Kamala’s momentum seems to have been checked.”

Perhaps it is because spending four days bashing Trump and trying to scare voters about something called “Project 2025” — while telling voters nothing about how Harris plans to deal with inflation, the economy, the border, crime, global threats, or anything for that matter — did little if anything to give uncommitted voters a reason to trust Harris to handle the nation’s many serious problems.

The Yahoo/YouGov poll finds that more Americans still think Trump will do a better job than Harris in dealing with inflation – their top concern – by 45% to 40%. They think Trump is more likely than Harris to keep the country “more safe” (41% to 32%). They think Trump would do a better job on crime than Harris (43% to 37%).

Why should anyone trust Harris on these issues? She’s been devoid of specifics. The one policy proposal Harris did release – price controls on grocery stores – was a belly flop, with people on all sides expressing opposition.

Aside from Democratic chestnuts such as taxing the rich, the only other things she or her campaign have mentioned are either ideas stolen from Trump (no taxes on tips), or are flip-flops from previous positions (on fracking, on outlawing private health insurance, and on building the border wall).

Her campaign website remains devoid of any policy proposals. (See below.)

Of course, all this can change on a dime. Harris might crush Trump in the debates, come across as poised and leader-like with the press (her first interview, with Tim Walz by her side and CNN’s Dana Bash lobbing softballs, takes place Thursday), and adequately explain her sudden disdain for the leftist policies she has always preached.

For now, however, she remains nothing more than a media-fed phenomenon who has no plans, no ideas, and no business being president.