CNNâs Harry Enten on Thursday shared several signs that he thinks are positive for Kamala Harrisâ chances of winning next weekâs election.
The senior political data reporter opened his case by pointing to the fact that the vice president is more popular than her opponent, Donald Trump, in terms of their respective net favorable ratings.
Since 1956, the candidate with a better net favorable rating has won on 16 occasions compared with just one victory for the less popular choiceâTrump in 2016.
âOf course remember, Hillary Clinton was quite unpopular herself,â Enten said. âBut the bottom line is this: Kamala Harris has been consistently more popular in the polls than Donald Trump and sheâs consistently had a higher net favorable rating than Donald Trump and normally, usually, the candidate whoâs more popular goes on to win on Election Day.â
Democratic candidatesâ performance in special elections in 2023 and 2024 also hold promise for Harris, Enten argued. On average, those candidates in state, legislative, and federal races âhave surpassed Joe Bidenâs 2020 margin by 2 points,â he said.
âRemember: Joe Biden won,â Enten said. âSo the fact that these Democrats have been doing better than Joe Bidenâs been doing is a good sign. Historically speaking, there is correlation between how folks do in the special electionsâespecially in this polarized eraâand how folks do eventually in the presidential election.â
Enten pointed out that in 2020, Democratsâ performances in special elections suggested that Trump would do better on Election Day than polls suggesting at the time that Biden would win comfortably.
âThis time around the special elections are suggesting the opposite,â Enten said. âThat in fact⌠because Democrats have been exceeding Joe Bidenâs margin, that maybe Democrats will actually do better than the polls have been indicating.â
On Wednesday, Enten had pointed to what he saw as positive signs for Trump. Among them, he highlighted polling showing that few people (28 percent) believe the country is on the right track and Bidenâs 40 percent job approval rating.
Harris supporters can take some comfort, though, from the fact that those same metrics had been similarly bad for Democrats in 2022âwhen âthe White House party did historically well in that midterm,â Enten said.
âA lot of Democrats believe that when voters vote, they win,â he said. âAnd with abortion being a much bigger issue this time around than⌠it was in 2022, [when] Democrats did historically well, perhaps Democrats will surprise a lot of folks and do historically well come next Tuesday.â