Harris campaign picks up speed and voters
Democrats’ switcheroo on presidential candidates is turning more than Republican and pundit heads. On top of polling showing Vice President Kamala Harris picking up support among Black voters, The New Republic has a scoop this morning regarding growing support for Harris among Latino voters:
Harris leads Trump by 55 percent to 37 percent in the head-to-head finding, which sampled 800 Latinos across Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina. The survey—provided to The New Republic in advance of its release on Monday—was conducted July 23-26, well after Biden stepped aside on July 21.
The poll dovetails with other national polls finding similar advantages for Harris among Latino voters. But, significantly, the larger Latino sample size in the survey—commissioned by the voter engagement group Somos PAC and conducted by Latino pollster Gary Segura—provides a stronger basis for confidence that Harris’s lead among Hispanics is real.
“Harris enters as the nominee with a very strong lead among Latinos,” says Segura, whose firm BSP Research did the poll (Segura’s business partner, Matt Barreto, polls separately for the Harris campaign). “We focused only on the battlegrounds, with a large enough sample in them to arrive at a confident estimate of the two-party vote in the states that will actually decide the election—not in states where the outcome is already determined, like Texas and California.”
“Harris has strengthened and consolidated support,” Melissa Morales, president and founder of Somos PAC, tells Greg Sargent. Trump has “very low favorability within the Latino community. The more we remind them who Trump actually is, the more we expect that to go down.”
Harris seems to be putting Sun Belt states back into play for Democrats.
Among Latinos overall, 34 percent are more excited to vote Democratic now that Harris is running, versus only 10 percent who are less excited. Separately, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other third party candidates are included in questioning, Harris leads Trump by 46-31, mirroring other polls.
The poll also challenges certain media narratives about this race. It has often been said that inflation and the economy are what enabled Trump’s economic “populism” to cut deeply into Biden’s Latino support. The poll does find that 63 percent of Latinos view the cost of living and inflation as their top issue—vindicating arguments that the economy now far outpaces immigration in that regard.
The polling reveals that Latino voters warm to a progressive populist message stressing Trump’s intent to reward the rich and corporations with more tax breaks and a Harris agenda of raising their taxes and holding them accountable for price gouging.
Sen. Bernie Sanders commissioned a poll of over 1,150 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that reveals a progressive agenda is overwhelmingly popular.
For instance, the poll shows that increasing taxes on the wealthy is supported by a 71%-27% margin overall. Even Republicans favored it by a 55%-43% majority.
Raising taxes on large corporations was also popular. A full 67% of respondents supported this, compared to 29% who said these companies should pay the same as they are now or less.
And there was very strong backing for increasing the minimum wage, with fully 89% saying the current $7.25 per hour rate needs to be boosted. Raising the rate to $17 per hour was backed by 70% of respondents, the majority of those strongly. The Senate rejected Sanders’ effort to increase the minimum wage to $15 back in March 2021, although many states have boosted it themselves.
Other elements Sanders has long advocated win similar support.
Sanders has not yet formally endorsed Harris but will appear on a “Progressives for Harris” organizing call tonight. and will use this poll to convince Harris to advance progressive policies that that continue President Joe Biden’s legacy Build Back Better agenda.
“What I want to make sure — and what this all is about — is to get the point not only to the vice president but to every Democratic candidate that if you run on issues, economic issues of concern to the working class of this country [that] we have ignored for too many years, you can win this election. That’s the main thrust of this poll.”
All this is good news for Democrats no matter what dark lining the press will inevitably highlight.
Those of you already working to turn out voters, do not take your feet off the gas/hybrid/EV. Accelerate out of the turn.
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