Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats were starting to get visions of a landslide win in their heads.
But they got yanked back to reality by an unlikely source.
And CNN broke some tough news that Kamala Harris never saw coming.
CNN warns Donald Trump is more popular than ever
Kamala Harris opened up a small 0.9 percent lead over Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average.
Betting markets show Kamala favored in most of the swing states.
But CNN data analyst Harry Enten crunched the numbers and warned Democrats they were getting way ahead of themselves.
Enten told viewers that one of the under-discussed aspects of the 2024 campaign is that Donald Trump is more popular than ever before.
“If you’ve been following the campaigns of Donald Trump through the years, you know that he’s won or came close to winning despite the fact that he was not a popular individual … Look at this, he was at 33% in 2016, a campaign he went on to win. In 2020, it was at 41% and now he’s at 44%,” Enten stated.
Enten said Trump’s increased popularity led to two different sets of questions.
“For the Trump campaign, the question is, ‘wait a minute, our guy is more popular basically than he’s ever been. And yet he seems to be falling behind in the polls. How do we change that? Is it possible to change that?’” Enten said of the Trump campaign.
But the polls may be shifting.
The three most recent national polls showed Kamala Harris’ bounce subsiding.
Pew found Harris was barley leading Trump 47 to 46 percent.
Fox News showed Trump holding a 50 to 49 percent advantage.
And a JL Partners poll for the Daily Mail had Trump up 43 to 41 over Kamala.
Kamala’s dilemma
Enten said any talk of a Kamala landslide seemed premature.
“The question for the Harris campaign is, ‘wait a minute, maybe we shouldn’t take things for granted because Trump has won when he has been so unpopular in the past, and now he’s more popular than he’s basically ever been. Maybe this guy really is going to be tough to put away,’” Enten added.
Enten also threw another note of caution Kamala’s way, saying her lead in the polls may be due to a sugar high and Americans see the real Kamala in action and her approval numbers fall – they surged around ten points overnight upon entering the race – she may not be able to maintain her lead over Trump.
“And I think that is going to be the very interesting question going down the sort of finale of this campaign … Is Harris not beating Trump enough? Or is she going to have to maintain her high favorable ratings that she’s been seeing?” Enten asked.
CNN’s Harry Enten Warns Harris Campaign Trump May Be ‘Tough To Put Away’ Because Of His Popularity Surge pic.twitter.com/Sc0ScxJ0Rc
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 14, 2024
Why Trump is more popular than ever
Trump is benefiting from nostalgia for his Presidency thanks to the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.
Under Trump, inflation was under two percent and gas reached as low a price as $1.87 per gallon.
The border was secure, and there was no threat of World War III on the horizon.
Prices are up over 21 percent thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s inflationary policies, the border is wide open and World War III could break out in Europe or the Middle East at any moment.
