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July 23, 2024 - 8:40pm
Recent media coverage of Kamala Harris has suggested she’s well positioned to win over youth voters. In reality, she’s currently polling below Joe Biden with voters aged 18-34.
The Vice President is losing to Trump 39-58 among voters under 35 in a Quinnipiac poll conducted July 19-21, a larger margin than Biden’s 37-54 deficit. Various other post-debate polls have Harris winning among young voters by three to 16 percentage points compared to Trump, a far cry from Democrats’ historically strong performance in the youth vote. In 2020, for instance, Biden won the under-30 vote against Trump 60-36.
This polling contrasts sharply with a slew of recent articles portraying Harris as the Gen Z favourite, touting an emerging Kamala Harris-centred meme culture, her relatively young age, and an endorsement from pop singer Charli XCX as factors. “Kamala Harris May Have Locked Down The Gen Z Vote With This Pop Star’s Endorsement,” the Huffington Post announced.
The online culture associated with Gen Z is not representative of the generation as a whole. For examples, anti-Israel content has been dominant on TikTok, and the war in Gaza has been top of mind for young activists on social media, but polling indicates that it’s not a top issue for young voters. The war is a top three issue for 20% of young voters, while cost of living and inflation — areas in which Trump polls strongly — are top issues for 70% of this group. Thus speculation that Harris would soften US support for Israel will likely have a minimal impact on the election.
Expectations that Harris will perform well among black voters are also overstated. She’s projected to win this demographic by anywhere from a 59 to 70 percentage point margin, slightly outperforming Biden’s 76-10 dominance over Trump as of the latest Quinnipiac poll. Nonetheless, news articles have been trickling out about a mass movement forming among black women to rally behind Harris.
This new poll paints a troubling picture for Harris, who has quickly become the party favourite to replace Biden on the November ballot. She’s trailing Trump by 19 points in the 18-34 age bracket and by 10 points in the 35-50 bracket, while she’s winning among voters 50 and older. Trump is slightly ahead, but the race is too close to call, according to the pollsters.
That the Democratic ticket did not see a major bump following Biden’s exit from the race indicates that the party’s challenges go beyond Biden’s shortcomings as a candidate, and Harris will have to address the reversal of Democrats’ usual dominance of the youth demographic.
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I expected a relief bump for Harris and it seems she may have gotten one.
No doubt Black women will rally to her, but those are votes ANY democrat would get. Black men are a different question.
Yes, there was a flood of money that came in, but nobody can say if it was smart money or just relief that Biden is gone money.
Harris did extremely poorly in the primaries when she ran for the White House, I mean embarrassingly bad, bad to the point she dropped out before her own states primary.
She has been largely missing for 3 yrs. What she had been involved with, the border, is a disaster.
The problem is that the democratic platform is a disaster. There is just no time, or even a willingness in the party, to reset the perceptions of their policies. Harris is linked to them and cannot escape them.
I see Trump winning this thing. He may not win the popular vote but he might. If he loses the popular vote I am gonna bet it is not by much. But I DO think he will win the electoral college.
Personally I think Harris is so disliked that these recent ‘polls’ are if anything proof of how rigged the game now is.
The fact they chose her is also strongly suggestive of the 2020 election having been rigged. After all, if you control the voting machines and the mail-in ballots, who cares how disliked your chosen puppet is?
It’s hard to imagine that black women would be so enthusiastic about an Indian woman raised by an Indian mom.
Pathetic anti-Harris column. Polling shows strongly that Trump massively lost black and Hispanic votes overnight with the switch to Harris. This column is less comment than wishful thinking.
“nonetheless, news articles have been trickling out about a mass movement forming among black women to rally behind Harris.” Is that all she’s got – acknowledges the strong support but ‘articles are trickling out’?
Genuinely pathetic.
I don’t believe blacks are rallying behind Harris. Her record as AG in CA is all she’s got, and it’s terrible as far as blacks are concerned.
Harris will soon get another bump when the next shoe falls: Biden’s resignation from office, which will invest her with the appellation “President Harris” before the election. In addition to nominally upgrading her status as a candidate in the upcoming election, Biden’s resignation would push back against the Democratic vulnerability of Biden’s current status. He is not merely now a lame duck because he is not running for re-election but also begs the question: if he is cognitively unfit to run for another term how can he be fit to finish his current one?
Because the next term is 4 years and the current is only 4 months.
Biden is cognitively unfit to be President for 4 years?
Why?
What’s wrong with him?
It can’t just be his age. Nancy Pelosi is 84 and she is not going anywhere.
What has he got that is being covered up by the Democrats?
And why were the Democrats, including Harris, calling Biden ‘sharp as a tack’ and denouncing ‘cheap fakes’ less than one month ago?
People age at different rates. Pray you retain yourself longer than Biden.
So what is wrong with somebody who was given a clean bill of health in Feb, 2024, with the White House doctors saying there was no sign of any neurological condition?
Do the American people have the right to know the medical condition of their President?
What are the Democrats covering up, by claiming that Biden is perfectly healthy and very capable of being President for the next 6 months?
That’s like saying it would be unacceptable for an incompetent airline pilot to fly passengers on a six hour flight but OK for him to fly passengers on a thirty minute flight. In the current state of world affairs four months could easily be critical. Biden is clearly non compos mentis. Every day he remains in office is a hazard.
One fly in that ointment: Harris would no longer be president of the Senate and a tie-breaker vote. Especially for judicial nominees. The Dems might keep the Biden animatronic as POTUS just to maintain control of the Senate for 2024.
She does have a plethora of inspiring quotes and platitudes.
“We will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues. And to work together as we continue to work, operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together…we will work on this together.”
“It’s time for us to do what we’ve been doing. And that time is every day.”
When Selina Meyer is your spirit animal…
https://youtu.be/72vUngNA9RM?si=Uurknb7qeqhTW8-C
Words. On top of words. Saying the same thing over and over.
It is impossible not to come to the conclusion that she is there based on skin and colour and gender. A female Obama she is not.
I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories. But there are times when my mind wanders. And in those moments I wonder, is this all part of a plan to undermine democracy? To give us such ludicrously bad options, that you’re left thinking democracy doesn’t work.
There is definitely a plan to undermine democracy, and destroying the public’s confidence in election integrity was the main weapon. The Dems did this perfectly in 2020 – a masterful accomplishment to wipe away swathes of ballot security protections while insisting that the other side were denying the right to vote. The media scorned with contempt those saying “What the heck just happened?” and then Biden jailed the ones bold enough to march on the Capitol to demand that their concerns be addressed. Distrust in election integrity is burning like a dormant volcano, which is exactly what you want if you want to foment a civil war. So – which side is the one destroying democracy? The ones who planned the 2020 election coup. It’s obvious.
Yes. Which is why Soros enthusiastically endorses the left. Anything that the left touches….breaks.
Did she really say that? Or is that ChatGPT? In fact ChatGPT would do a better job.
She needs to start saying ‘I was like’ a lot more.
‘Climate change, COVID and the death of George Floyd’.
Three things that, in themselves, would have had almost no impact whatsoever on the lives of Gen Z.
I sense she will get the graduate middle-class and their corporations to lead in this campaign. The young Left will get behind them at the last moment if they want to turn out.
They’re not going to vote for Mr Kennedy, after all, who’s politics are also populist and pretty close to Trump, pro-Israel and anti-neocon.
How the modern Left got behind neoconservatism is one of the astounding and bemusing stories of our political age.
“I’m so excited about who they are, and their leadership, and what they are doing to inspire those of us who’ve been around a little longer.”
Does generation Z have ‘a leadership’?
Don’t trust the US (or any Western) MSM between now and 5th November. Truth about the Presidential election will be as rare as hen’s teeth.
Poll is from before Harris announced her campaign. Polls since then find a tie or her leading.