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Senate Democrat gets honest in private about Trump's performance in the polls — and history proves his fears are justified
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Senate Democrat gets honest in private about Trump's performance in the polls — and history proves his fears are justified

Does a Harris lead in the polls translate to a Harris victory? Not exactly.

With Election Day just six weeks away, polls grab news headlines every day, and many of them suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris is well on her way to the White House.

But one Senate Democrat recently shared his fear that polls are, once again, undercounting support for Trump — which means Harris is doing worse than polls indicate.

"That's ominous. There's no question that is concerning, but you’re working as hard as you can work, no matter what. My sense [is] there’s not a lot more you can do than we’re already doing," the Senate Democrat told The Hill anonymously.

That senator claimed that Trump supporters are "embarrassed" to admit they support Trump, which is why pollsters aren't gauging accurate support for the former president.

Of course, anyone who has interacted with Trump supporters know they are not shy about publicly identifying themselves as such.

The fact is: Harris is performing significantly worse today compared to Biden four years ago while Trump is polling significantly better.

Interestingly, one Democratic pollster, Celina Lake, went on the record with The Hill to disclose her polling fears — while insulting Trump supporters in the process.

"I, too, share the concern that there are going to be some surprises. What accentuates my concern is when you poll people who have not voted in ’20 but are planning to vote today, they are disproportionately Trump voters," Lake told the outlet. "If you look at first-time voters who didn’t vote in ’20, they are leaning toward Trump and they’re very low information and they like his kind of style. And they like Elon Musk and they like a lot of things like that. I worry about that. I think it’s definitely a concern, and I think we just have to get enough margin to compensate for that."

But the problem for Harris and Democrats is exactly what the Senate Democrat admitted anonymously: The polls historically undermeasure Trump's support.

For example, final polling in battleground states in 2016 indicated that Hillary Clinton should have won Wisconsin by 7.2%, Pennsylvania by 2.6%, and Michigan by 3.7%.

In the end, she lost all three states. Moreover, the polls showed that Clinton would win the popular vote by 3.2%. In reality, the final margin was 2.1% — and she lost the Electoral College.

The same phenomena played out in 2020: Biden performed worse in battleground states and nationally than polls indicated — and Trump overperformed.

How does this translate to today? The fact is: Harris is performing significantly worse today compared to Biden four years ago while Trump is polling significantly better.

At this time four years ago, Biden held a 6.9% lead over Trump nationally. Today, Harris' lead is just 2.3%. She's also worse compared to Biden in every battleground state: Wisconsin (-5.6%), Pennsylvania (-3.7%), Michigan (-3.4%), Nevada (-7.1%), Ohio (-12.3%), Arizona (-5.4%), North Carolina (-1.3%), and Florida (-7.3%).

The Senate Democrat called Harris' performance in the polls "ominous" because the data currently indicates that Trump will likely win in November.

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Chris Enloe

Chris Enloe

Staff Writer

Chris Enloe is a staff writer for Blaze News
@chrisenloe →