LILLEY: Top pollster urges caution on early Kamala Harris polling

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The euphoria around Kamala Harris becoming the de facto, chosen but not elected, nominee of the Democratic Party is something to behold. There was jubilation in some parts of the media over a poll showing her in the lead against Donald Trump.

Not so fast says one of the top pollsters in the business, the American presidential race has effectively started all over again and we need more time and more polling to watch for trends.

“There’s still 100-plus days left in this campaign, there’s a lot of things that are going to happen,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of public affairs at Ipsos.

It was an Ipsos poll, conducted for Reuters, that had many in the media swooning on Tuesday, but Bricker warned of reading too much into it. Harris’ entry into the race is energizing Democrats but the full impact of her entering the race has yet to be felt.

“What is fair to say is that for Democrats and for Independents who are leaning Democrat is that having Kamala Harris in the race has given them a sense of hope,” Bricker said.

Hope was something in short supply when Biden was still the Democratic candidate. Fundraising pledges were drying up, states that were considered reliable for the Democrats were becoming battleground states that Trump could have won, and voters who would have supported the Democratic Party in normal times were either switching their vote or withdrawing from politics.

Bricker sees what has shown up in his poll and some others as reversing that, but he offers a caution.

“I would interpret the numbers that we’re seeing for Harris right now as maybe closing the enthusiasm gap a little bit that existed with Biden for Democrats and Independents, who lean Democrat rather than an overwhelming endorsement of Kamala Harris. I mean, they’re only changed by a couple of points, and quite frankly, her favourability ratings only rose by 5,” Bricker said.

The current RealClear Politics average of polls puts Trump ahead of Harris on the national stage by 1.6 percentage points. That average, however, includes several polls taken while Biden was still the Democratic candidate.

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In addition to the Ipsos poll, which has Harris up by 2 points, there have been polls taken on a Trump-Harris match-up by Morning Consult showing Trump up by 2 and a poll by Marist for NBC showing Trump ahead by 1 point.

“I would say you’re going to have to give it a week to 10 days,” Bricker said when asked how long it might take for reliable trends to emerge in presidential polling.

“I think people are going to be polling like mad on that over the space of the next while.”

The difference, of course, won’t be in those national numbers but in the battleground states. Prior to Biden dropping out, Trump was ahead in Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada and threatening the Democrats in places like Virginia, Maine and New Hampshire.

The Democrats are in a hole at the moment when it comes to the Electoral College. It doesn’t matter how excited the talking heads on MSNBC or CNN are about Harris’s entry into the race, and there is only so much that glowing columns in the New York Times or Washington Post can accomplish.

This race will be won on the campaign trail in those battleground states.

Trump is still in the lead — for Harris to turn that around in just over 100 days will take one heck of a campaign, so buckle up it’s going to be quite the ride until Nov. 5.

blilley@postmedia.com