Despite the constant Kamala Harris hype, she is polling worse than Hillary Clinton was at this point in 2016 - a trend that spells trouble for Harris as she faces the end of her "honeymoon" phase.
The sobering data shows that Harris is "nowhere near" where she wants to be, Republican Karl Rove warned in a Fox News interview.
Rove is no fan of Donald Trump, so his analysis can hardly be dismissed as partisan bluster.
The current RealClearPolitics average has Harris ahead by just over one point nationwide. Both Clinton and Joe Biden performed much better against Trump in their respective polling, Rove observed.
“On this day in 2020, Joe Biden was up 7.1% above Donald Trump in the RealClearPolitics average. And at this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 6.3. And as you remember, the election came down to a handful of votes in a handful of states. And today, in the RealClearPolitics average, Harris is up over Trump by 1.5 in the RCP average and 3.5 in the 538.com.," Rove said.
Both presidential elections in 2016 and 2020 were extremely close, with Trump winning in 2016 despite his polling deficit and losing in 2020 by small margins in a few swing states.
“So this, you know, she’s ahead in both averages, but she’s nowhere near ahead by the numbers that both Biden and Clinton were in,” Rove said. "And as we know, Clinton lost and Biden won by 42,000 votes in three states."
Given the past failure of polls to accurately capture Trump's support, some say Harris' narrow lead paints a misleading picture of the race.
"If the polling errors are anywhere close to what they were in 2016 and 2020, then Trump is in the lead right now," Democratic strategist Julian Epstein told Fox News Digital.
Trump maintains narrow leads in all of the battleground states with the exceptions of Wisconsin and Michigan, where Harris is ahead by one and two points respectively, according to the latest RealClearPolitics averages.
Despite their public jubilation, Democrats are not oblivious to the challenges before them. A Harris super PAC conceded that her private polling is "much less rosy" than the public surveys suggest.
With the Democratic convention behind her, Harris is expected to face more pressure to answer questions and fill in policy details in the weeks ahead.
Harris has her first sit-down interview, a joint effort with running mate Tim Walz, Thursday night on CNN. Many expect that Harris could start to lose support as she comes under closer scrutiny.
