Historic polls show a difficult story for Kamala Harris

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Reading the news coverage – and the campaign finance headlines – you might think Kamala Harris had shot into a dominant position against Donald Trump. Even before she received unmatched positive reviews for her debate performance, her approval ratings had risen nearly 20 points from their low point in January and 10 points from the Democrats' low point in the summer. She is doing about 4 percentage points better in swing states, on average, than Joe Biden did before she replaced him as presidential candidate.

But with 53 days to go before Election Day, Harris supporters have every reason to be nervous, as history shows. In the RealClearPolitics national poll, she is 1.3 points ahead of Trump – within the margin of error. Over the past 20 years, the eventual losers of presidential elections have averaged 2.6 points below the RCP average. Harris is doing only slightly better.

Although it's harder to climb out of a deficit this late in a cycle, even a leading campaign can stumble when outside forces intervene. That seems to explain how Hillary Clinton blew a 1.5-point lead at this point in 2016 (I'm looking at you, James Comey) and how John McCain appeared to be leading by 2.3 points in 2008 before losing (there was a pesky Wall Street meltdown in the meantime).

Still, Democrats have a clear lead over Republicans in enthusiasm, and that could make all the difference in voter turnout. According to Gallup polls, Democratic enthusiasm currently exceeds even the levels seen immediately before Barack Obama's election in 2008.

Most pollsters agree that the post-debate race is in the midst of a reset that will show up in the next round of polls, due out early next week. Even then, any bounce-back could be short-lived, but it will be enough if it lasts far enough into early voting.

That explains why Democrats remain optimistic about their chances, from the top tier all the way through state legislature races. Campaign finance reports due this weekend should provide some clues as to how millions are sloshing around in some pretty inefficient places; Texas Senate candidates have already raised $97 million for a campaign that Senator Ted Cruz is certain to lose.

To be sure, this campaign was no longer a clear-cut race after Biden's resignation. With the president off the ballot, Republicans are finding it harder to link their rivals to an unpopular incumbent who even his strongest allies have come to recognize as a burden on voters. Strategists in both parties' House and Senate races are optimistic overall, although there are clear races that are more problematic for one side than the other. But Republicans are openly worried that their money machines may not be able to keep up with the Democrats' new zeal.

Still, it's the frontrunner that's driving much of the debate, and that's trickling down into the other parts of the political ecosystem. Harris's fans are right to think she's saved Democrats' luck across the board, but they're far from winning politics' biggest prizes. The fight for every last vote will be fierce, as the hostility during Tuesday night's uneven debate showed. There's no reason to believe the other elections will escape a similar turn for the worse.

Less well known, however, is whether this will harden the presidential candidates' weakest supporters and get them to vote? Trump's diehard supporters have demonstrated their ability to tune out inconvenient issues, while Democrats tend to be intransigent when they are turned into true loyalists. But historical trends show that ideological optimism is rarely enough to break through inertia, especially without dramatic intervention. And relying on it is not a sensible strategy for Harris or her KHive – even if history shows it works best to reclaim the top spot.

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Correction, September 13

The original version of this story misstated Kamala Harris' position relative to Donald Trump in RealClearPolitics' Sept. 12 national polling average, which showed her 1.3 percentage points ahead of Trump, not behind him.