Donald Trump’s former communications director cautioned Vice President Kamala Harris against getting too comfortable despite recent polling showing her leading the former president in critical battleground states.
Harris has held the momentum in the 2024 presidential race since launching her campaign in late July, making up considerable grounds for Democrats who were starting to trail the former president in the weeks leading up to President Joe Biden suspending his reelection bid.
Some analysts, however, have described the string of wins as a “Harris Honeymoon,” and predict that polling may not be reflective of how close the race to the White House truly is. After Fox News released a set of polls on Wednesday that showed Harris surging among four battleground states, Trump’s campaign released a memo pointing to what it described as “atrocious” polling from the network in past election years, including in 2020 when Fox‘s surveys overestimated Biden’s lead over Trump in states like Arizona.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at the Enmarket Arena August 29, 2024, in Savannah, Georgia. A former Trump. White House aide cautioned Harris from getting too comfortable amid her recent string of polling success, noting that the former president often “under polls.”
Win McNamee/GETTY IMAGES
The polls showed Harris up by 1 or 2 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, while Trump was leading by 1 point in North Carolina. All four states are places where Trump once led Biden by at least 5 percentage points. Fox’s latest surveys had a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points, meaning Harris and Trump are in a statistical tie.
“If I was on the Harris side, I would tell them that he [Trump] under polls, and so he may be up a little bit more than that,” Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former White House communications director, told CNN‘s Alex Marquardt on Friday while reacting to Fox News’ polling.
“They’ve got to dig in and work very hard in those areas of the country,” Scaramucci added. “Now, she could have a breakout moment with more interviews. She could have a breakout moment in the September 10 debate. But if I’m her, if I’m on her campaign, I’m recommending she pushes very, very hard in those areas, because she could put him on the run.”
U.S. public opinion polling underestimated Trump’s support in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Pew Research Center senior Scott Keeter told Newsweek earlier in the week that one of the “main issues” that pollsters have run into is that the former president’s voting base “is harder to reach through traditional polling methods.”
“Trump supporters tend to have lower levels of trust in institutions, including those conducting polls, which can skew results,” Keeter explained.
Scaramucci has praised Harris over his former boss since she entered the race, including showing support for the vice president following her first sit-down interview of the 2024 election with CNN’s Dana Bash aired Thursday evening.
“I think she’s consistently outperforming and she’s consistently exceeding expectations of her,” Scaramucci said on CNN Friday while discussing Harris’ interview. “And she’s going to be a very formidable candidate come November.”
Harris has consistently painted herself as the “underdog” in the 2024 race, including telling supporters during a rally in Savannah, Georgia, Thursday night, “This is going to be a tight race until the end.”
“Don’t pay attention to polls, we are underdog,” Harris told supporters. “We don’t mind hard work. Hard work is for workers.”
As of Friday evening, FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate put the Democratic nominee at 3.4 percentage points ahead of Trump on average across national surveys.
Newsweek reached out to Trump and Harris’ campaign via email for additional comment.
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