The Democrats’ main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris for president says the Super PAC’s own internal opinion polling on the presidential nominee is “much less rosy” than public polls.
The founder of the Future Forward super PAC has warned Democrats that they face much closer races in key states.
“Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” Future Forward president Chauncey McLean said.
McLean made the confession during a Monday event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
According to public polling, Harris is leading President Donald Trump in several national polls by FiveThirtyEight; 46.6% to 43.8%.
Reuters reports that Harris has now pulled ahead of Trump in several battleground states.
However, this is not what Future Forward is seeing.
Future Forward has created a massive polling operation that created and tested some 500 digital and television ads for Biden and some 200 for Harris.
The group has talked to some 375,000 Americans in the weeks after Harris became the presumptive Democrat nominee on July 22.
McLean said the group has at least $250 million left to spend, planning a wave of advertising from digital to television between Labor Day on Sept. 2 and Election Day on Nov. 5.
Super PACs can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals, then spend unlimited amounts to overtly advocate for or against political candidates.
McLean said the majority of Harris’s momentum in the immediate aftermath of Biden dropping out was from young voters of color.
He argues that this has opened up Sunbelt states such as Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.
These are states that Democrats had largely written off in the final days of the Biden campaign.
Cherry picking cross tabs is almost always fools gold but this is a critique of the methodological approach people are using to try to adjust for this issue.
— Mark Davin Harris (@markdharris) August 16, 2024
“She has multiple paths,” with seven states in play, a complete turnaround from when Biden was on the ticket, he said.
The other states include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
McLean said Pennsylvania remains the most consequential state in the group’s analysis and he called the race a “coin flip” based on its polls.
He says Harris must win one of three states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or Georgia – to win the White House.
He warned that Harris has yet to fully rebuild the Biden coalition of blacks, Hispanics, and young voters that brought him the White House in 2020.
I don’t blame the public pollsters for not fixing the response bias issue they are operating on really tight budgets but I do think they are herding results with weighting as well which I do blame them for.
— Mark Davin Harris (@markdharris) August 16, 2024
McLean said polling shows the public wants more detailed policy positions from Harris.
He says they don’t want “white papers,” but they also don’t want platitudes.
McLean says they need more concrete examples of how she may differ from Biden and make their lives easier economically.
Trump allies have called on Harris to do the same in recent days, hoping to pin her down on controversial issues.
The race is as tight as ever, McLean said.
“We have it tight as a tick, and pretty much across the board,” he said.
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