The NYT/Siena Poll is a 5-Alarm Fire for the Harris Campaign

A deep dive into the NYT/Siena poll. The most important poll of the election so far.

On Sunday the New York Times and Siena College released their latest election poll and it immediately set off alarm bells in the media and across DC. The headline number showed Donald Trump beating Kamala Harris 48%-47% in a national vote. While that is massive news on it’s own and terrible for the Harris campaign, the underlying data and crosstabs revealed even more shocking information. Let’s dive in…

First, let’s get a few things out of the way:

1. NYT/Siena is consistently ranked as one of the best mainstream pollsters in the country. Across the political spectrum they tend to be one of the most accurate and respected in the business. In September 2016, they had Hillary Clinton up by just +2. In September 2020, they had Biden up by +8. Even Nate Silver has them ranked as his second best national pollster.

2. This poll had a large sample size of 1,695 likely voters nationwide. It was also conducted very recently from September 3-6. (post-Labor Day, post-DNC, post-RFK Jr)

Now, this is only one poll and it doesn’t set anything in stone, but it does further confirm the trend that we’ve been seeing in recent weeks. Kamala Harris’ honeymoon has indeed ended. The initial excitement of her replacing Biden has now faded and Americans in the “middle” are realizing that they do not really like her, or her policies.

A quick reminder that in national polling (popular vote), Kamala Harris likely needs to lead by ~3% to feel comfortable that she’ll win the election. She can of course still win while polling worse, but if she’s up just 1-2% nationally, Trump would be the clear favorite. That’s because in states like New York and California, Kamala will win with millions of extra votes. If Trump is winning in national polling, as this poll shows, it is extremely likely that he will win the electoral college. You can see the estimated margin breakdown in the chart below from Nate Silver:

When you look underneath the headline numbers there are some crosstabs and data segments that are much more interesting. Interesting in a way that likely has the Harris campaign panicking a fair amount on the eve of the first presidential debate. For example…

Amongst 2020 Voters:
Biden Voters: Harris 92-6%
Trump Voters: Trump 97-2%
Did Not Vote: Trump 49-40%

As you may expect, people who voted for Trump in 2020 are very likely to vote for him again. Similarly, people who voted for Biden in 2020 are very likely to vote for Harris. However, there is a larger group (6%) that is not carrying over for Harris. Beyond that, the segment that really jumps off the page is the Americans who did not vote in 2020. They are now “likely voters” in 2024 and favor Trump by almost double-digits (49%-40%). There’s no way to spin it… that’s just very bad for the Harris campaign.

The racial crosstabs were also very interesting. I wouldn’t say that they were surprising based on the political shifts we’ve seen over the last few years, but the Harris campaign certainly wants and expects better results than this:

White: Trump 56-41% (+15)
Black: Harris 78-14% (+64)
Hispanic: Harris 55-41% (+14)

In 2020, Trump got just 12% of the Black vote. CNN Exit Polls had Biden +75, compared to Kamala's +64 here. In addition, Trump got just 32% of the Hispanic vote in 2020. Biden was +33 then, compared to Kamala’s +14 here. Put simply… if this data is accurate and doesn’t change by election day, Trump will put up a historic performance with minority voters for a modern Republican, and he’ll do so while running against a woman of color.

Another crosstab that caught my attention was the subset of young voters, likely voters aged 18-29. This is a group where Kamala should perform her absolute strongest and Trump his weakest. However, in what seems almost impossible, she is drastically underperforming Joe Biden from 2020 (who was 77 years old).

Kamala is up with this group 51%-43%, only an 8 point lead. Joe Biden beat Trump in this same young voter block 60%-36% (+24). I can promise you that when the Harris campaign looked at these numbers yesterday morning, someone dropped their cup of coffee on the ground. They need to completely dominate with young voters and instead they seem to be barely squeaking by.

The last underlying data point that shot up a clear warning flare was maybe the most significant. Not race, not age… but simply reflecting on the two candidates themselves:

Which candidate represents major change in this election?
Donald Trump: 53%
Kamala Harris: 25%

The majority of Americans are unhappy with the current direction of the country. From the economy, to immigration, to foreign policy… the Biden/Harris administration gets negative marks across the board. The key for the Harris campaign has always been to try and gently separate her from President Biden and his unpopular first term. However, with only 25% of likely voters seeing Kamala as representing "major change”, they are clearly failing. Most unbiased analysts predicted that they would have trouble with this goal, as she is still the sitting Vice President and has spent the last 4 years defending their administration’s actions. Trump has also already been in office (and doesn’t represent anything new), but the key difference is that he does represent change from the last 4 years. That is what Americans are looking for.

To summarize, this was the most significant poll of the election so far. The final candidates are set, the conventions are behind us, the honeymoon phases are over… and this was very, very bad for Kamala Harris. She has a huge opportunity to shift the narrative at their debate on Tuesday, but she needs a home run performance.

One thing is clear… if the data in this NYT/Siena Poll holds and is accurate, or even remotely close, we will be asleep by midnight on November 5th.