Beware: Don't Compare the 2016 & 2020 Polls in Late July to Those Now.

In 2016, Hillary already had her "bumps" for the VP rollout and the convention.

Kamala Harris is expected to name her running mate in the next couple days and hasn't had her convention yet.

In 2020, Covid put a damper on the conventions.

Pollsters have also worked to correct the undersampling of "shy" Trump supporters. And Trump supporters sure as hell aren't "shy" anymore.

The Vice President is already in a statistical tie with Trump (actually leading in the most recent polling) and is leading in most polls in ALL battleground states with the exception of Georgia.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls
(see polling up to August 2)

Trump is barely ahead in North Carolina, which bodes well for Harris holding the "Blue Wall."

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SW-User

The pollsters have more than learned their lesson from 2016 and they've been essentially spot on since then.

Kamala will win :)

SomeMichGuy · M

@SW-User Let us hope that we are out from under the cloud of Donald Trump.

SomeMichGuy · M

Biden's timing of his announcement and the obvious move to Harris has been a master class in politics, once again.

Nonegone

I just use the polls for some level of information but don’t rely on them.

Elessar · 31-35, M

In 2016 Trump was a homus novus, with a "brand new" platform (at least, for America).

The «people are tired of the conventional options and want to try something new» isn't really a card in their deck anymore, and even if they swapped Trump at the very last for someone else, the platform would remains the same (certainly wouldn't move any left, and couldn't realistically move further right either due to, well, being already as far-right as one could get).

Comparing to 2016 isn't really useful because of primarily this fact. And both 2020 and 2022 have been a disaster for Republicans, so playing the same card especially now that the Dems' option is gaining popularity is unlikely to turn out any good for them.

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