CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten noted on Friday that it would be unprecedented for Vice President Kamala Harris, representing the incumbent Democratic Party, to win the presidency considering so few Americans believe the country is on the “right track,” according to recent polling.
Enten pointed to polling showing that only 28% of Americans currently think America is on the right track and noted that this is close to the average rating when the party in power loses major elections.
“You‘re very much in the danger zone when we‘re looking at that right track, wrong direction number, that’s where Democrats are right now,” the data reporter declared.
Enten explained the predicament, noting both the historical average percentage of Americans who believe the country is on the right track when the incumbent party loses an election – 25% – and the average percentage in the same category when that party retains power via an election, which he revealed was 42%.
He spelled out to viewers that the current 28% right track number is much closer to the rate that is present when the incumbent loses.
Pointing to the numbers on screen, Enten said, “Look at that. It‘s just 25%. That looks a heck of a lot like that 28%, right, that currently think the country‘s on the right track.”
He continued, “When the White House party wins – i.e. Kamala Harris’ party, the Democrats – 42% on average think that the country is on the right track. This 25% looks a lot more like this 28%. It doesn‘t look anything like this 42%.”
Summarizing the data, he declared, “This to me is a bad sign for Kamala Harris’ campaign. The bottom line is it looks a lot more like a loser than it does like a winner when it comes to the country being on the right track.”
CNN anchor John Berman asked if it was possible that the Democratic Party could win with these numbers, to which Enten cited the average “right track” rate during every election since 1980 in which the incumbent won.
His chart revealed that the lowest rate of Americans thinking the country was on the right track when an incumbent won in the modern era was in 1996, when 39% of voters thought the nation was moving in the right direction.
The other rates were at 41% or higher when incumbents won since 1980, the highest being 47% of the country thought it was on the right track when former President Ronald Reagan won re-election in 1984 by a landslide.
“There is no historical precedent for the White House party winning another term in the White House when just 28% of the country thinks that we’re on the right track,” he said, adding, “John, simply put, it would be historically unprecedented.”
At Berman’s urging, Enten mentioned a small hope for Democrats that the latest midterm elections could represent the country is in a new era in this regard, showing numbers revealing that the Democratic Party had a successful 2022 midterms even though only 26% thought the country was on the right track at the time.
“Maybe we’ve entered a new political environment where Donald Trump is so unpopular that these historical norms, these historical measures that we look at don’t actually mean what we think anymore,” he stated.
“I’ll tell you this much, Kamala Harris better hope that’s the case, because otherwise this right track, wrong direction situation will not work out in their favor.”