A new Marquette Law School poll finds Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump nationally by six points among likely voters in a head-to-head match up, 53% to 47%.
In a multi-candidate field, Harris leads 50% to 42%
If other polls get similar margins, Trump is in big trouble
Historically, positive polling trends tend to increase support. It’s the bandwagon effect, and it’s the reason why there have always been bullshit polls that are designed to skew results in favor of a particular candidate or position.
2016 was a weird exception, and a large part of that can be attributed to the fact that a lot of people didn’t want to vote for Hillary. Being in the lead didn’t mean they had a good candidate, it meant that she had enough support already and it wasn’t necessary to force yourself to vote for her.
With Biden out and Harris in, I think polls with her beating Trump are likely to have a net positive effect. There has been a lingering sense of inevitable doom hanging over the Democrats in this election, and I’m much more concerned about people getting discouraged and not bothering to vote than I am about people getting overconfident.