--- title: Historical Polling Tells a Tough Tale for Kamala Harris description: Going back 20 years, the presidential election losers at this point were, on average, down 2.6 points. Harris is faring only a bit better. canonical: https://time.com/7020923/kamala-harris-polling/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-09-12T19:25:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T12:17:42.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Historical Polling Tells a Tough Tale for Kamala Harris og:description: A look at polling at this point in past presidential elections gives Kamala Harris supporters reason to worry og:url: https://time.com/7020923/kamala-harris-polling/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbdc4e0b2c0ecaf9/698a5ada86f68e60fa6f592a/GettyImages-2169666373.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Harris unveils small business tax plan at New Hampshire campaign stop og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Historical Polling Tells a Tough Tale for Kamala Harris twitter:description: A look at polling at this point in past presidential elections gives Kamala Harris supporters reason to worry twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbdc4e0b2c0ecaf9/698a5ada86f68e60fa6f592a/GettyImages-2169666373.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Historical Polling Tells a Tough Tale for Kamala Harris > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Updated: Jan 19, 2026 12:17 PM UTCPublished: Sep 12, 2024 7:25 PM UTC  Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event at Throwback Brewery, in North Hampton, NH. Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event at Throwback Brewery, in North Hampton, NH. Danielle Parhizkaran—The Boston Globe via Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Updated: Jan 19, 2026 12:17 PM UTCPublished: Sep 12, 2024 7:25 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ If you read the coverage—and campaign finance [toplines](https://www.axios.com/2024/09/11/harris-trump-fundraising-senate-republicans)—you might think Kamala Harris has rocketed to a commanding position against Donald Trump. Even before drawing unmatched positive reviews for her debate performance, her public favorability numbers had [jumped](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/kamala-harris/) by almost 20 points since her low point in January and 10 points from Democrats’ summer nadir. In battleground states, she’s doing an [average](https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/presidential-polling-averages/) of about 4 percentage points better than Joe Biden was before she [replaced](https://time.com/7009317/reintroduction-of-kamala-harris/) him as the presidential nominee. But at Thursday’s mark of 53 days before Election Day, history suggests Harris supporters have good reason to be skittish. In RealClearPolitics’ national poll of polls, she’s leading Trump by 1.3 points—within the margin of error. Going back 20 years, the eventual losers of presidential contests at this point were, on average, down 2.6 points in the RCP average. Harris is only faring a bit better than that. While it's harder to climb out of a deficit this late in a cycle, even a leading campaign can stumble if outside forces intervene. That’s what arguably explains how Hillary Clinton blew a 1.5-point advantage at this point in 2016 (Looking at you, [James Comey](https://time.com/4560091/hillary-clinton-fbi-no-change/)) and how John McCain seemed to be up by 2.3 points before losing in 2008 (A pesky Wall Street [meltdown](https://time.com/archive/6686370/how-financial-madness-overtook-wall-street/) unfolded in the interim). Still, Democrats have a clear advantage over Republicans when it comes to enthusiasm, which could make all the difference in turnout. Democratic enthusiasm right now [tops](https://news.gallup.com/poll/649397/democrats-drive-surge-election-enthusiasm.aspx) even levels seen right before Barack Obama’s 2008 election, according to Gallup polling. Most pollsters agree that, after the debate, the race is in the midst of a reset, one that will show up in the next round of surveys that will come out early next week. Even then, any bump may be short lived, but sufficient if it lasts deep enough into early voting. That explains why Democrats remain bullish about their odds, from the top of the ticket down to individual [state legislative](https://time.com/7020217/kamala-harris-super-pac-fundraising/) races. The campaign finance reports that are due this weekend should offer some hints about how millions are sloshing around in some fairly inefficient places; Texas’ Senate candidates have already [raised](https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/most-expensive-races) $97 million for a contest that has [remained](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2024/texas/cruz-vs-allred) firmly Sen. Ted Cruz’s to lose. To be sure, this race stopped being a potential blow-out when Biden stepped aside. With the President off the ticket, Republicans are finding it tougher to link their rivals with an unpopular incumbent that even his strongest allies had to acknowledge had become a drag down-ballot. Strategists for House and Senate campaigns in both parties are bullish overall, although there are clear races that are more problematic for one side than the other. Republicans, however, are openly [fretting](https://www.axios.com/2024/09/11/harris-trump-fundraising-senate-republicans) that their money machines might not be able to keep pace with Democrats’ new zeal. Still, the top of the ticket is what is driving so much of the conversation, and that trickles down into the other pieces of the political ecosystem. Harris’ [stans](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/style/khive-kamala-harris-supporters.html) are right to think she salvaged Democrats’ fortunes up and down the ticket, but they are far from a lock for the biggest prizes in politics. The fight for every last vote is one that is going to be a vicious one, as the hostility on display during Tuesday night’s unevenly matched debate showed. There’s no reason to think the other contests will dodge the same twist toward nasty. What is less known, however, is this: will any of it harden either presidential candidates’ softest supporters and ensure they turn out? Trump’s die-hards have proven their ability to tune out inconvenient hassles, while Democrats tend to be intractable when turned into true-believers. Historical trends, though, show ideological optimism is seldom sufficient to break inertia, especially absent some dramatic intervention. And counting on that is not a sensible strategy for Harris or her [KHive](https://time.com/5920530/jill-biden-kamala-harris/)—even if it’s what history tells us works best to retake the upper position. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ **Correction, Sept. 13** _The original version of this story misstated where Kamala Harris was in relation to Donald Trump in the RealClearPolitics’ national polling average on Sept. 12\. She was leading Trump by 1.3 percentage points, not trailing him._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7020923/kamala-harris-polling/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7020923/kamala-harris-polling/"},"headline":"Historical Polling Tells a Tough Tale for Kamala Harris","datePublished":"2024-09-12T19:25:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T12:17:42.000Z","description":"The KHive has good reason to be skittish","url":"https://time.com/7020923/kamala-harris-polling/","keywords":["The D.C. 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