CHICAGO — A historic shift in the presidential ticket. A shift in the polls. And a still-undefined presidential candidate.
That’s the backdrop to this week’s Democratic convention, which began Monday with President Joe Biden passing the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris and ends Thursday night with Harris formally accepting her party’s presidential nomination.
These five numbers help set the tone for this week’s events, and for the rest of the 2024 campaign after the conventions are over.
(1) 4 points
That’s Harris’ lead over Republican Donald Trump in the latest Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos national poll: 49% vs. 45% among registered voters.
While the result is within the poll’s margin of error, it is consistent with other national polls and polls on key issues that suggest she has a narrow lead over Trump.
And it’s a significant change from a month ago, when Biden was still in the race. In the July Washington Post/ABC poll, Biden and Trump were tied at 46%.
(2) 81%
That’s the percentage of Democratic voters who are satisfied with Harris as the party’s presidential nominee, compared to 15% who would have preferred someone else, according to a recent CNBC national poll.
It’s a stunning shift in enthusiasm from NBC News’ July poll, when just 33% of Democrats said they were satisfied with Biden as the nominee, compared to 62% who wanted someone else.
(3) 9 points
That’s Harris’ deficit on the economy versus Trump, according to that WaPo/ABC poll. In that survey, 46% of voters say they trust Trump more on the economy, compared with 37% who trust Harris more.
Trump’s lead on economic issues is consistent with what other polls show, although a Financial Times poll showed the two candidates virtually tied on this issue.
So Harris is behind on an issue that voters generally view as the most important issue facing the country in 2024. But it’s also less than half the deficit Biden had to Trump on the economy when NBC News tested them on this six months ago.
This comes as Harris seeks to flesh out her economic platform. She spoke on Friday about plans to address the cost of food, housing, medicine and child care if elected, and on Monday she announced plans to raise the corporate tax rate to 28%.
(4) 64%
That’s the percentage of voters who say they know what Harris stands for, according to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll.
That’s a majority of voters, but it’s smaller than the 86% of voters who say they know what Trump stands for.
That illustrates one of the Democrats’ main goals for this Congress: to clearly define their party’s presidential nominee for the public, while Republicans are trying to define it on their own terms.
(5) 45%
That’s also the share of likely voters in New York Times/Siena College polls in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina who say Harris is too liberal or too progressive.
This is a slim majority of the total number of respondents, compared to 6% who say they are not liberal/progressive enough, and 43% who say they are not too far in either direction.
For comparison, 35% of likely voters think Trump is too conservative, 9% think he is not conservative enough, and 47% think he has gone too far in either direction.
In the race to define Harris, there are currently more voters who believe the Democratic candidate is too liberal than who believe the Republican candidate is too conservative.
Can Harris and the convention change that perception? This week will help answer that question — and perhaps determine whether she can maintain her momentum in the campaign’s final stretch.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
