The battle to win over the remaining undecided voters in the 2024 presidential election looks as though it’s coming down to which campaign can successfully define Kamala Harris; look no further than the ads you see on TV in battleground states.20bet
This may also explain why polls in battleground states can paint a very different picture of the race from that of national polls. In the past several days, we’ve had a flurry of national polls with mostly good news for the Harris campaign, only to be followed by Monday’s release of New York Times/Siena College polls of three Sun Belt battleground states — Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina — that presented a much more favorable view of the race for Donald Trump.
I’ve been on the road recently in the Phoenix area and took a moment to catch Sunday’s game between the Detroit Lions and the Arizona Cardinals on TV. Arizona voters are seeing their airwaves blanketed by political ads, and I was struck by the difference in approach from the Trump and Harris teams. Spots aired by Mr. Trump and his allies were largely negative ads about Ms. Harris, highlighting, in particular, her past position supporting the provision of gender transition surgery to incarcerated people. Meanwhile, ads from the Harris camp varied: While some hit Mr. Trump, particularly on the issue of abortion, more than a few were also purely positive ads, including highlighting her comment, during their debate, about her time as a prosecutor who “never asked a victim or a witness, ‘Are you a Republican or a Democrat?’”
The ads were representative of the mix of messaging that battleground state viewers have been seeing since on-air spending for the two campaigns ramped up in recent weeks. The Wesleyan Media Project estimated that the Trump team has spent almost zero on ads that only promote him in a positive light, while around a quarter of Harris ads are positive.
Why are both campaigns spending so much time talking about Ms. Harris? Because while most voters know how they feel about Mr. Trump, views of her remain very fluid.
Take the NBC News poll that came out this past weekend, showing Ms. Harris with a five-point advantage over Mr. Trump among registered voters. It also showed that since July, views on her swung significantly from deep unpopularity (a net 18 percentage points unfavorable) to a net positive (net three points favorable). NBC’s Mark Murray noted only three other times a presidential candidate’s favorability has swung so significantly in such a short period, including George W. Bush’s favorability immediately after Sept. 11.
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