CNN’s Harry Enten Stuns Democrats, Pours Cold Water On ‘Harris Momentum’

Political analyst Harry Enten delivered a segment on CNN that may dampen the enthusiasm of Democrats rallying around Kamala Harris’s perceived momentum in the 2024 presidential race. Despite high-profile endorsements from Democratic heavyweights including former President Barack Obama, Enten suggests the supposed surge in Harris’s popularity might not be as robust as it appears.

Enten pointed out the nuances in recent polling data, which could be crucial as the Democratic Party sets the stage for what many believe will be a Harris nomination. “I think there’s all this talk of all this Harris momentum. Maybe there’s a slight bit of momentum, but I would argue it’s actually a little bit smaller than folks think,” Enten explained on CNN.

His analysis comes at a pivotal moment for the Democratic Party, which formally adopted rules on Wednesday for a likely Harris nomination. The vetting process for Harris’s potential running mate is also in full swing, with an announcement expected before August 7.

“So pre-Biden dropping out, look, Trump was up by two over Harris. We look at the polls now this week. What do we see? We see Trump is up by one over Harris,” he said. The minor shift in polling, according to Enten, indicates that the change in candidates might be more influential than any genuine momentum for Harris against Trump.

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“The massive change is actually the change of candidates because prior to Biden dropping out, he trailed by six points among these, in these exact same polls that we look at here, where Harris was only trailing by two points. So the movement is actually from Biden to Harris, not actually Harris herself necessarily moving,” Enten clarified.

The veep, the first Black female to lead a major party ticket has seen a “honeymoon” in the polls as she tightened the race against former President Donald Trump and coalesced major Democratic Party figures behind her candidacy. So far, no challenger has stepped forward, putting Harris on a glide path to a formal nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago next month. Obama, who for days left open the possibility that he would support a “blitz primary” that saw uncommitted delegates swayed by multiple candidates, closed that door.

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National polls since Biden’s exit continue to show that Trump maintains a lead over Harris and even larger leads in some of the most hotly contested battleground states of the 2024 cycle. However, the switchover has disrupted Republicans’ line of attack which for months had been honed to harness the weakness of Biden’s economy and foreign policy chops as well as growing evidence of his physical and mental decline in office. Harris has scrambled that strategy, Politico reported, as Republicans test messages about Harris’s failures as a border czar, a prosecutor as the former attorney general of California, and her penchant for making “weird” or uninformed statements about coconut trees and “fancy” artificial intelligence.

While there is a shift toward Harris from Biden among Democratic voters, the overall dynamics of the race against Trump may not have shifted as dramatically as some Democrat optimists might have hoped. As Democrats continue to coalesce around Harris with the party’s endorsement and strategic moves underway, the real test will begin in the coming months. This period be critical for Harris and the Democrat Party as they finalize their ticket and refine their strategy going forward.

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