by Josiah Lippincott
Kamala’s “surging” poll numbers are a lot of hot air.
A close analysis of the data shows that Donald Trump continues to maintain a dominant position in this election. After factoring in the systematic pro-Democrat bias in polling data, Trump comes out decisively in the lead. As it stands now, Trump will likely win every swing state and the national popular vote.
Donald Trump has consistently outperformed his state-level polling by an enormous degree. The pollsters have consistently and laughably underestimated his true support level. The margin of error always cuts the same way!
The headlines saying Kamala is in the lead in the swing states are sheer propaganda. It is not enough for Kamala to be “up” in these polls, she needs to be up by more than the systematic pro-Democrat polling bias to actually win the election.
Let’s dive into the numbers. All data below is from 538’s polling average.
In 2020, Biden polled as leading Trump by 7.9 points in Michigan. Biden won by 2.8 points. He polled at +2.6 points in Arizona. He won by 0.3. Biden polled at +1.2 in Georgia. He won by 0.2. Biden polled at +4.7 in PA. He won by 1.2. Biden polled at +4.9 in Nevada. He won by 2.4. Biden polled at +1.8 in North Carolina. He lost by 1.3 points.
The most egregious example by far was Wisconsin. 538’s 2020 polls had Biden up by nearly nine points on election day. Biden barely squeaked by with a 0.6 point lead after the final vote tally.
On average, polls overestimated Biden’s support in swing states in 2020 by a whopping 3.6 points. That pro-Democrat bias is so strong that it should be automatically factored in before trying to understand state and national level polling data in this election.
If we assume that polls have the same margin of pro-Democrat error that they had in 2020, then Donald Trump would win every single swing state if the election were held today. Not only that, but he would also win Virginia, where the last polls conducted showed him outright beating Harris by four points.
In the table below, the numbers on the left show Kamala’s current lead in 538’s polling averages. The right-hand column shows the difference between the 2020 polling average and Biden’s actual results. For Kamala to be in a winning position in a given state, the left-hand number needs to be higher than the one to its right. As you can see, that simply isn’t happening:
| Michigan | 3.4 | 6.2 |
| Arizona | 0.9 | 2.3 |
| Georgia | 0.2 | 1 |
| Pennsylvania | 2.3 | 3.5 |
| Wisconsin | 3.2 | 7.8 |
| Nevada | Tie | 2.5 |
| N. Carolina | -0.5 | 3.1 |
The systematic pro-Democrat bias isn’t just found in 2020 polling either. It was also apparent in 2016. Below is a table comparing Hillary’s lead in polling data (left) to the final margin of victory (right). Negative numbers show a Trump advantage.
| Michigan | 4.2 | -0.2 |
| Arizona | -2.2 | -3.5 |
| Nevada | 1.2 | 2.4 |
| Pennsylvania | 3.7 | -0.7 |
| Wisconsin | 5.3 | -0.8 |
| N. Carolina | 0.7 | -2.7 |
As you can see, 2016’s polls overestimated Hillary’s lead by an average of 3.1 percentage points. If we correct the 2024 state-level polls by this margin of error, we once again see that Kamala is in deep trouble.
Right now, she would lose the popular vote if we factor in the pro-Democrat bias. In 2020, national polls had Biden up, on average, by 8.4 points in the popular vote. He won by only 4.5 points, however. That delta of 3.9 is greater than Kamala’s current national vote “lead” of 2.6 points over Trump. This means that, in reality, Trump is likely beating Kamala by about 1.3 points in the national popular vote.
None of this should be surprising. Kamala is running a hastily slapped-together campaign after Joe Biden was forced out of the race due to a catastrophic collapse in support. She was only given three months to try and craft a winning message in an election where Donald Trump has every advantage.
Trump’s courageous response to the assassination attempt solidified his status as the frontrunner. He has never been more popular than he is right now. Kamala is grasping at straws.
Democrats have gone from calling Trump the next Adolf Hitler to pretending that he is “weird.” That’s quite the rhetorical comedown.
Setting aside those enormous political headwinds, Kamala has a whole set of other problems. For one, not one American voter has ever cast a ballot for her at the national level or in a single presidential primary. Kamala is also a notoriously bad interviewer. Her 2021 sit-down with Lester Holt went so badly that the Biden people essentially put Harris in political deep freeze for the next two years.
Kamala’s choice of vice president isn’t doing her any favors either. Tim Walz has a serious stolen valor crisis on his hands after he claimed he carried “weapons of war into war” despite never deploying to a combat zone. Not only that, he has lied for decades about what rank he retired at from the National Guard.
Kamala also has a history of saying extremely radical things in public and on camera. She is weak on immigration, the economy, and crime. Her position on abortion, a supposed strong point, is undercut by her stance on COVID vaccines. It is hard to argue “my body, my choice” when you supported firing tens of millions of Americans for not getting an experimental medical treatment.
Based on in-person and social media support it is clear that Kamala’s staunchest supporters tend to overwhelmingly be women, the elderly, and homosexuals. Unfortunately for her, Kamala does, in fact, need to win over straight male voters. That is going to prove to be a tough task in an election where she has not yet announced a single policy proposal that she hasn’t stolen from Trump.
Kamala has not sat down for any interviews or done any debates either. This, too, bodes ill for her chances. Joe Biden ran into a buzzsaw in his one direct encounter with Trump and Kamala could very easily do the same. She does not handle the stress of adversarial questioning well.
She is incredibly weak on foreign policy. Her canned 25-minute stump speech makes no mention of the Ukraine War or the current conflict in Gaza. It remains unclear how she will navigate those complex issues rhetorically while coming under pressure from both Donald Trump and her own base. At her Detroit rally, pro-Palestine protestors interrupted her repeatedly.
Kamala’s great hope is that the media will cover for her until November and that she won’t have to meaningfully campaign or make any policy statements. That simply isn’t going to work, however.
Kamala has not reinvented herself. She’s still the same politician who had to bow out of the 2020 Democratic Primaries in December of 2019 because she was polling in the low single digits.
Conservatives shouldn’t get complacent, of course. Kamala does have the backing of the entire American financial sector and the media. Those are powerful assets, but as the most recent polling shows us, once the systematic pro-Democrat polling bias is factored in, Kamala is still losing. She will almost certainly sink further the more as she gets more unscripted exposure to voters.
The lesson for Republicans is clear—keep the pedal pressed to the floor but do not despair.
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Josiah Lippincott is a Ph.D. student and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer. You can find him on Telegram at https://t.me/josiah_lippincott or subscribe to his Substack here.
Photo “Kamala Harris” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
