Siena throws some ugly nuance into the polling net. YouGov, too.

Siena is one of 538's three most highly rated polls and Nate Silver's second-highest. That means Siena "tends to singularly drive the media conversation about the race," notes Silver. And that it has. Virtually all news outlets are mindlessly repeating Trump's giddiness about the poll while passing on the only story worth reporting: The giddy one is the country's most diseased and dangerous of indigenous loons.

Of some solace is that the poll's findings are 3-points within its margin of error. Causing one disconsolation is this undeniable truth: "[Trump's] support remains remarkably resilient." On the other hand, 28% of likely voters said they want to "to know more about" Harris.

Tomorrow night's debate is critical for that reason, and others of potential Trump knee-slappers and blunders. (I do hope she at least thunders about the neofascist, 900-page Project 2025 and his ultra-authoritarian Truth Social post he wrote on Saturday.) From The Times.

Nate Cohn, The Times' in-house numbers guy, writes his"bit surpris[ed]" observations in a separate piece, titled "New Poll Suggests Harris's Support Has Stalled After a Euphoric August." I could kiss him for holding this mediocrity until about halfway: "We never know whether the polls are 'right' until the votes are counted." Got it? Sorry, Mr. Cohn. After all, you did spare me from plowing through The Times' dry coverage as well as the poll's extensive findings. 

Trump's approval rating is up slightly to 46%, "better than where he stood in either of his last two presidential campaigns," notes Cohn. When asked "which candidate is better on whatever was their top issue," Trump scored 53% to 42% on immigration and 56% to 40% on the economy, lover of concentration camps and macroeconomic dunce that he is. Harris' highs were on democracy, 50-44, and abortion, 55 to 38.

Cohn says "one of Mr. Trump’s overlooked advantages" — warning, this is even more ghoulish — is that a "near majority of voters" — the hopelessly purblind, drunk, or those ravaged by an IQ of roughly their hat size — see Trump as “not too far” to the right. Goebbels would agree while gently pushing him into unmitigated Hitlerism; he'd also be pleased that so many have so far been bamboozled.

A similar near majority see Harris as "too far to the left,"‘ as "too liberal or progressive," a possibly crippling statistic for the Democrat. 

The numbers guy, surprising to me, writes that "one question that stuck out to us is about which candidate represents 'change.'" Harris, he further writes, "has done a lot of savvy political work projecting herself as the candidate of the future." Yet a mere 25% of respondents see her as an agent of “major change," while Trump reaps 51%. The next downer is that 61% of voters said such change is what they want. They'd get it when the U.S. is again a rogue nation and the Messiah wrecks the economy with his utterly idiotic tariffs.

"Finally," writes Cohn, Harris' efforts to define herself appear to be sagging. "The conventional wisdom" was that she was making headway in that arena. A majority, however, see her as "somewhat responsible" for the border problems, just as a majority believe she’s a "risky’ choice." Both are parrotings of Trump's propaganda. 

The Siena poll is what Harris' campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dillon, smartly anticipated in a 1 Sept. 1, state-of-the-race public memo, which I wrote about here. She said "we head into the final stretch of this race as the clear underdogs," and "Trump has a motivated base of support, with more support and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020." The contest's margins will be "razor thin," she added. In reminding us of the memo, Cohn says and I agree that that last comment "is probably the biggest takeaway from this poll."

Moving briefly to a new CBS News poll of three battleground states, conducted by YouGov, also highly reliable — and paywalled. Of that I already have too many draining me dry.

One the poll's internals — a mystery to die for, or at minimum watch our standard of living go belly-up, which is another highly reliable probability if Trump is elected.

In historian Heather Cox Richardson's most recent newsletter, as a friend informed me, she observes that in his Mosinee, Wisconsin Saturday speech, "Trump slurred a number of words, referring to Elon Musk as 'Leon,' for example, and forgetting the name of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum." Doug, you will recall, Trump was going to announce as is his running mate.

That's already lost in his head's dense fog. I speak truly; it wasn't that long ago. On 15 July and in the eleventh hour — like, 30 minutes before the announcement — some loons nearly as loony as Donald talked him into to the widely ridiculed goofweed, JD Vance, whose name I'm sure Trump will also forget some bright and shiny day occluded in his underworld.

Politico's Playbook, being Politico, naturally squeezed into its reporting on the Siena poll Team Trump's heights of exhilaration. "[Harris'] honeymoon is officially over," bleated the prince of darkness' spokesperson, Jason Miller. "Kamala Harris has been exposed as a Radical Left individual ..... This is all coming from the [BARACK] OBAMA advisors who have layered the original Harris team — the Obama advisors don’t actually believe in Kamala Harris, and their campaign decision-making shows it."

The Free Press is "for free people," it says, but it ain't free. Yet another paywall. It did print for us peasants the lede by one Sohrab Ahmari, who, I gather, was hooked on some serious weed eight years ago. "For many of the conservatives who embraced it—myself included—the Trumpian moment promised a more populist, pro-worker GOP. Yet the latest iteration of Donald Trump has dashed these hopes, playing down the themes that propelled his 2016 campaign." I recall little more than his unhinged ravings.

And there you have it, a wrap-up of yesterday's polling alerts and whatnot from The NY Times, Nate Cohn, CBS News and a few others traveling the internet's non-shopping "information highway."

(P.S. I'm overlooking today's Harvard-Harris poll. It fails to even rate in the rankings. I'll just note it found a tie, both head-to-head and multi-candidate.) 

Comments

[Anne J]

Well since everything is coming up Trump, then I don't see why I should bother voting. The fix is already in.

[Uncle Billy]

Nice to see you've learned exactly what the GOP wants you to learn, Anne. Resistance is futile.

[Anne J]

Uncle Billy, I live in California, so my vote never counts anyway. We are still the most populated state, but we have very little representation in congress. Rocks and trees in red states have more representation in congress than actual humans in California.