Kornacki Breaks Down Polling: Top Line Is 5-Point Harris Advantage Is Gone

GUTHRIE: “I mean, the top line is the 5-point advantage that Kamala Harris had in our last poll is gone. What’s behind that shift?”
KORNACKI: “Yeah, exactly, Savannah. I mean, just look at them side by side and you can see it. Remember that poll we took a month ago that you see here? It was just after that first Trump-Harris debate. Since then, we’ve had the VP debate. There’ve been some campaign activities, some interviews, some things that have changed in that time. I think this might be the biggest for Harris. We just asked the basic image perception people have. Is it positive or negative of these candidates? The Trump number’s always been somewhere in this territory. In fact, this is a little bit high for him, believe it or not, 43 percent positive. But look at Harris, 43 positive, 49 negative. The significance, we polled this a month ago. She was 48 percent positive and 45 negative. She was above water, as they say. That’s completely reversed. It now looks very similar to Trump’s. That’s a pretty big shift when you’re talking about a race this close. And then there’s the weight of the fact she’s the VP in an unpopular administration. We asked about President Biden’s policies. Are they helping or hurting your family? Just a quarter of voters said they’re helping, nearly half said they’re hurting. And then here’s the interesting twist. We also asked folks, think back to when Donald Trump was president. Did his policies help or hurt your family? And look at the difference, 44 percent helping, 31 hurting. Trump’s — the retrospective, you would say, opinion of Trump’s presidency among voters, arguably higher now than when he was president.”