At The New Republic, Timothy Noah reports that “Harris May Finally Be Breaking Through to the Most Critical Voters: A Times/Siena poll shows working-class voters are finally moving in the Democrat’s direction. She may need them to win in November.” As Noah writes, “The New York Times reported Tuesday the good news that Kamala Harris leads in its polling for the first time since she entered the race. The Times/Siena poll is judged by FiveThirtyEight to be the most reliable, based on both its track record and its transparency. It is also one of the more helpful polls when you want to take a deep dive into the electorate, because it makes available to the public detailed responses from key subgroups among likely voters. The crosstabs in this latest Times/Siena poll offer something more surprising than the top line: mild encouragement that working-class voters, about whom I’ve been worrying a great deal, are finally warming to the Democratic candidate….I say “mild” because there’s no evidence yet that working-class voters are warming to Harris in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which CNN has identified as “the most consistent tipping point in American politics.” During the past 32 years these states went Republican only once, when Trump won all three in 2016. If Harris wins these three, she wins the election. This isn’t her only path to the 270 electoral votes she needs to win (MSNBC has some alternative scenarios here), but it’s the easiest path. And among all seven swing states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina have the highest proportion of blue-collar workers.”

Noah adds, “The Times reported that Harris is leading nationally, and that she’s gained ground among some key constituencies, including older voters, who are hugely important because (if you define “older” as 50 years or more) they cast more than 60 percent of all ballots in 2024. Before he dropped out, Biden was leading with voters aged 65 and over, even though they usually lean conservative. (In 2020 they went for Trump.) But in mid-September the Times/Siena poll showed Harris losing this group to Trump by seven percentage points, 44–51. The latest poll shows Harris winning over-65s by two percentage points, 49–47. Hallelujah….The Times did not report that Harris is gaining nationally among working-class voters, but she is. (Working-class voters are defined here conventionally as voters lacking a college degree.) Harris still lags Trump with this group in the Times/Siena poll, but since July she’s narrowed that gap from a dispiriting 15 percentage points to 11 percentage points. There’s still a lot of work to do, but as recently as mid-September, in a Times/Siena poll taken immediately after the presidential debate, Harris was losing this group to Trump by an alarming 18 percentage points.”

Noah notes further, “Where Harris is gaining some traction is with white working-class voters, a group that, with the sole exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, hasn’t gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson. It’s doubtful that Harris will win white working-class voters outright in 2024, but since July she’s narrowed her deficit from 38 percentage points to 30 percentage points. As with Harris’s gain with working-class voters overall, the improvement is mostly recent; in mid-September, Harris’s deficit with white working class voters was 36 percentage points, and one week earlier (i.e., before her debate with Trump), Harris’s deficit was the same 36 percentage points. I would guess these white working-class voters are women….Because the new Times-Siena poll does not break out results by state, we don’t know whether in recent weeks working-class voters drifted toward Harris in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to the same mildly encouraging extent they did nationally. An October 8 Wall Street Journal article by Ken Thomas and Catherine Lucey (“Kamala Harris Struggling to Break Through With Working Class, Democrats Fear”) reports that a private poll last week by Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who’s running for reelection in Wisconsin, showed Baldwin up two points and Harris down three, with the difference attributed to working-class men.* The same story portrays Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer urging the Harris campaign to spend more time there; Harris’s last Michigan appearance was September 19. A September 30 New Yorker piece by Eyal Press about working-class voters in Pennsylvania has no new polling information and is mildly discouraging….Multiple polls now show Harris gaining on Trump, and sometimes beating him, on the question of economic stewardship. Perhaps that’s why she’s gaining a bit among white working-class voters. There’s growing reason to believe Harris can win enough working-class support to win the presidency. But her pitch to these voters still needs to improve. Perhaps the small encouragement the new Times/Siena poll offers about the working-class vote will inspire her to do so.”

As regards Trump bragging at the Al Smith Dinner about his ‘leading big’ with Catholic voters, the reality is a bit more complicated, as Tom Norton points out at Newsweek: “While Trump leads in some polls among Catholic voters, he is not leading in “all polls” and his claim that he has a “big” advantage is debatable….A poll released this week by New Catholic Reporter showed Trump was ahead by five percentage points in the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin….While Trump led by 16 percentage points among white Catholic voters, the data also showed that seven out of 10 Hispanic Catholics and more than three-quarters of Black Catholics preferred Harris….Data from last month by Pew Research showed similar results. In a survey conducted from August to September, Pew found Catholic respondents overall were likelier to vote for Trump “if the 2024 presidential election were held today,” leading by five percentage points. However, the results split significantly between subgroups, with 61 percent of white Catholics picking Trump and 65 percent of Hispanic Catholics choosing Harris….Conversely, the same month, EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research showed a Harris lead among Catholic voters polled, with 50 percent supporting the Democratic presidential nominee, 43 percent for Trump and 6 percent undecided….Other data suggests Trump’s lead among Catholics may have declined since President Joe Biden stood down as the Democratic presidential candidate. Pew Research from April found Trump had voter support among 55 percent of Catholic respondents. This fell to 52 percent in Pew’s September 2024 survey….So, while Trump may be able to claim an advantage, its significance seems debatable.” We’ll leave it to others to sort out the significance of such stats in light of Catholic subgroup voter turnout rates in swing counties and states.