Ahead of tonight's CRUNCH debate Kamala Harris is in serious TROUBLE

What the latest polling says about the race for the White House

---

Matt Goodwin’s Substack goes to more than 53,000 subscribers from 166 countries around the world and thousands of paying supporters who support our work. Like our stuff? Then help us expand by becoming a paid supporter and access everything —the full archive, exclusive posts, polling, leave comments, join the debate, get discounts, advance notice about events, and the knowledge you’re supporting independent writers who are not afraid to push back against the grain. You can also join our community on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X and Facebook.

Tonight, for the very first time, we finally get to see Kamala Harris debate Donald Trump in what looks set to be a crunch moment in the race for the White House.

And this really is an enormous moment —not least because the Democrat presidential candidate has so far managed to evade serious exposure and scrutiny.

Am I the only one who thinks it’s utterly bonkers that it’s been FIFTY days since Joe Biden stepped down and since then Harris, his chosen successor, has appeared in just ONE prominent television interview?

And even that was not exactly a tough grilling.

After a heavily stage-managed Democrat national convention, not only did Harris sit down for a pre-recorded, edited, and tightly controlled interview on the openly pro-Democrat CNN but she also spoke alongside her running mate Tim Walz.

I mean, who does that? Is she trying to appear weak?

---

---

So tonight REALLY matters.

And it also matters for another reason —the latest polls.

Put simply, they’re not great for Harris. While that carefully managed convention did appear to produce a Democrat bounce, the shine has now clearly come off.

In the last few days, the reputable and major New York Times/Siena poll has put Donald Trump back in the lead, albeit by 1-point.

At the same point in the cycle in 2020, the same poll had Biden 8-points ahead.

And the race in crunch states like Pennsylvania is also tightening, suggesting again that the pendulum is swinging away from Harris and back toward Trump.

---

---

And there’s more. As New York Times pollster Nate Cohn notes, if you look into the detail then there’s more troubling news for Team Harris.

For a start, Trump is actually more popular now than he was at the same point in 2016 and 2020 —not that you’d hear this from much of the media class.

Overall, some 46% of Americans now say they have a favourable view of the former president —which is higher than the equivalent figures when he first won the White House eight years ago and when he narrowly failed to win four years ago.

Trump also leads Harris on the big issues of the day.

The economy, consistently, is the top issue for Americans, with nearly eight in ten of them thinking the national economy is performing “poorly”.

And when they are asked which candidate would do a better job at managing the economy it’s not even close —Trump leads Harris by a commanding 16-points.

Last night, too, Pew Research Centre found much the same —handing Trump a big lead on the economy, with voters significantly more likely to think that he, rather than Harris, would make “good decisions” about economy policy.

And when Americans are asked about immigration, which is the third top issue, Trump again leads Harris by a large margin, of 53% to 42%.

The only issue in the top three issues for Americans on which Harris leads is the issue of abortion, by a margin of 17-points.

The fact that Donald Trump leads on two of the three top issues should ring loud alarm bells in Team Harris-Walz.

---

---

And there are some other things that Harris urgently needs to address tonight.

Perhaps because she’s avoided the media, Harris is still seen by many voters as an unknown quantity. In short, they don’t really know her.

Nearly one-third of ALL Americans, some 31%, say they still need to learn more about Harris, compared to only 12% who say the same about Trump.

And this is especially true among the all-important independent voters, with 41% of these voters saying they need to learn more about Harris —compared to only 14% of independents who say the same about Trump.

Team Trump have been working overtime to present Harris as not just an unknown quantity but “dangerously liberal”, arguing that her record on issues like the border, immigration, and woke policies make her a serious risk to America.

And there’s clear evidence that many ordinary Americans are now buying into this.