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Despite breathless reports that Senator Kamala Harris had pulled to within 2 points of former Vice President Joe Biden in a recent poll, the overall data show that Biden still has a commanding lead over all of his rivals, including Harris.
Harris rose in the polls thanks to pulling black Americans away from Biden, largely due to her not-so-subtle suggestion that Biden was the friend of “segregationists.”
The problem with the analysis that Harris is now a serious contender — at least based on polling data — is that another poll taken over the same three days still shows Biden nearly 20 points ahead of her. In other words, while Biden’s margin over his main rivals has narrowed, the race is nowhere near as close as the chest-heaving reports from the leftist media suggest.
Senators Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are still choking on Biden’s dust. The true accomplishment of Harris is not moving to within 2 points of Biden in one poll, but instead truly surging past socialist Sanders into second place.
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The Average
NBC’s report was typical:
Sen. Kamala Harris of California has catapulted into a virtual tie with former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and she’smade significant inroads with black voters — following her widely praised debate performance last week, a new national poll released Tuesday showed.
The latest Quinnipiac University poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters showed Biden with 22 percent support and Harris with 20 percent — a double-digit jump for her since the university’s previous poll last month.
Reported Quinnipiac, “Biden has a numerical lead among men with 22 percent, followed by Sanders at 19 percent and Harris with 14 percent,” it reported.
But among women, Harris has a slight edge with 24 percent to Biden’s 22 percent. The race is similarly close for white Democratic voters, with Biden at 21 percent, and both Harris and Warren at 20 percent. Harris also essentially catches Biden among black Democratic voters, a historically strong voting bloc for Biden, with Biden at 31 percent and Harris at 27 percent..
Quinnipiac analyst Mary Snow concluded that Biden and Harris are on “two different trajectories, as support for Harris surges but continues to slip for Biden. Biden’s once commanding lead has evaporated.”
ABC Poll
Not really.
Quinnipac’s number might well show Harris “surging,” but she didn’t surge in an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken over the same three days, June 28 through July 1.
Twenty-nine percent of Democrats support Biden in that poll, compared to 23 percent for socialist Bernie Sanders, and 11 percent for Harris. Significantly, Warren tied her.
Real Clear Politics, for some reason, reported the numbers as 30-13, but in any event, the lead is about the same.
And while 41 percent of those polled think Harris stood out most in the debate — again because of her explicitly racial attack on Biden — a whopping 45 percent say Biden is the most electable Democrat.
On that note, former California House Speaker Willie Brown says not a single one of the Democrats can beat President Donald Trump.
RCP Average
Other polls comport with ABC’s; i.e., Biden is still winning.
An Economic/YouGov poll taken June 30 through July 2 shows Warren at 19 points, and ahead of Harris at 15 and Sanders at 9. But Biden is ahead of Warren by 4 at 23.
A Hill/Harris X poll conducted June 29-30 puts Biden a long 22 points ahead of Harris, who limped in at 11 percent. Biden bested Sanders, 33-15, an 18-point margin. Warren received 9 percent.
The PoliticoMorning Consult poll of June 27-28 shows similar results: Biden took 33 percent, Sanders, 19, and Harris and Warren 12 each.
A Harvard/Harris poll taken June 26 through June 29 has Biden at 34 percent support. Sanders follows at 19, Warren at 11, and Harris a distant third at 9 — 25 points behind.
So where does Harris stand as the RCP average goes? She has moved up. But she still sits 10.8 points behind Sleepy Joe:
Biden: 26
Harris: 15.2
Sanders: 14
Warren : 13.8
Thus, perhaps the more significant news isn’t that the “surge” of Harris put her 2 points behind Biden in a single poll, but that Harris, who reached double-digit support just three times in the 41 polls between March and June 27, has surpassed Sanders and Warren. Now, she consistently polls in double digits.
Harris, Brown’s former mistress, might well give Biden a run for his money. But right now, the polling data don’t show that Harris — a dream candidate for the leftist media because she’s both black and a woman — is close to upsetting the most electable Democrat.
Photo of Sen. Kamala Harris: AP Images
