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New poll shows Trump still ahead – Kamala tightens race but not the ‘shoo-in’ the media portrays

August 14, 2024 | | Print Article

A new poll revealed voters’ biggest concern with Vice President Kamala Harris as former President Donald Trump maintained his edge.

Media bias, campaign shenanigans, and Trump Derangement Syndrome proved ineffective at surmounting the GOP leader’s advantage according to one new sampling of likely voters. Polled between Aug. 7-11, the J.L. Partners survey conducted for the Daily Mail put the president ahead of the “liberal” vice president by 2%, within the 3.1% margin of error.

“Do not get us wrong. Harris has made big inroads–especially with young voters and blacks–and she has started to close the gap with independents,” said JLP co-founder James Johnson as Harris had climbed from 37% to 41% since the end of July.

“But Trump holds an advantage with his base, who remain more energized, and has held his position with whites, Hispanics, and voters over the age of 50,” he added as the Republican nominee’s numbers remained consistent at 43% since March.

After questioning 1,001 likely voters, the survey further found 5% support for Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 2% for alternative third-party choices.

“Harris’s biggest support remains relatively limited to 18-49-year-olds. A lot of this is due to Trump’s dominance on the issues of the economy and the border,” said Johnson. “But at the moment we are looking at a race made tighter, rather than transformed to a Harris shoo-in.”

“All eyes now should be on the independents. If Harris can make more progress with them, then we could see Trump’s advantage disappear,” the pollster added as the survey also found voters biggest hangup with the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee was her being “liberal,” a point Trump raised during his conversation with Elon Musk.

“She is a San Francisco liberal who destroyed San Francisco, and then as attorney general, she destroyed California,” the president said to the tech mogul who has been relocating his companies to Texas, including San Francisco-based X

Additional hesitations that stood out from the JLP word cloud included “woman,” “extreme,” “inexperienced,” “incompetent” and “liar.”

Honorable mentions like “communist” and “fake” also jumped out.

Further metrics showed Trump surpassing Harris in categories of perceived strength and charisma while the Democrat had a lead in the “caring,” “friendly” and “moral” columns.

The reality remains that the concerted efforts by corporate media, Big Tech, and influential high-powered donors have still barely shifted the needle for the vice president as the nominating convention is set to begin in less than a week.

“…Harris has pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history,” wrote Time reporter Charlotte Alter as the magazine released a glowing puff piece designed to sell that narrative rebrand around the candidate who’d previously been viewed so unfavorably she dropped out of the 2020 presidential race before a single vote had been cast.

That story also preceded a report that showed how the Harris-Walz campaign has been “editing news headlines and descriptions” in paid promotions on Google to give the impression that corporate media has even greater support for their ticket than had already been demonstrated.

Meanwhile, her supposed rising popularity belied the reality that the presumptive nominee was making every effort to avoid unscripted appearances in front of the American people, going so far as to hastily depart Washington, D.C. without the press pool that was supposed to travel with her.

Kevin Haggerty
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