It’s not just that CNN’s Harry Enten crunches numbers in a fascinating and comprehensive manner, his presentations are also intelligible to regular folks like me.
To be clear, today he was making the case for why former President Donald Trump will win. On Friday he’ll show the path to victory for pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris.
To jump ahead, on Friday, Enten will likely make the case that pollster underestimated Trump in both 2016 and 2020. They’ve made adjustments so they won’t make the same mistake three elections in a row. Over the last 52 years, we haven’t seen the same party underestimated three times in a row.
What follows is almost entirely Tim Haines’s transcription of what Enten said. CNN’s John Berman asks a few pertinent questions.
Get the latest pro-life news and information on X (Twitter). Follow @LifeNewsHQ
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Just 28 percent of Americans, voters, think the country is going in the right direction, is on the right track. And I want you to put that into a historical perspective for you. OK, what’s the average percentage of the public that thinks that the country is on the right track when the incumbent party loses. It’s 25 percent. That 25 percent looks an awful bit like – like that 28 percent up there. It doesn’t look anything, anything like this. Forty-two percent doesn’t look anything like this 28 percent.
So, the bottom line is, very few Americans think the country is on the right track at this particular point. It tracks much more with when the incumbent party loses than with it wins. In fact, I went back through history. There isn’t a single time in which 28 percent of the American public thinks the country is going on the right track in which the incumbent party actually won. They always lose when just 28 percent of the country believes that the country is on the right track, John.
JOHN BERMAN What kind of a weight is he [President Biden] on the Harris campaign?
ENTEN, So, you know, Joe Biden isn’t on the ballot, but he’s certainly in the minds of Americans, right? So, I went back and I looked, OK, was this successor of the same party when the president’s net approval rating was negative at this point, which Joe Biden’s most definitely is. He’s 15 points underwater.
Now, we don’t know if Kamala Harris is going to succeed Joe Biden. But we know back in 2008, George W. Bush, his approval rating was down in the 20s. Did a Republican succeed George W. Bush? No.
How about in 1968? Lyndon Baines Johnson. His net approval rating was negative. Did a Democrat succeed Lyndon Baines Johnson? No.
How about in ’52, Harry S. Truman? His approval rating was in the 20s, if not the upper teens. Did a Democrat succeed Harry S. Truman in ’52? My memory, no. No, as Kate Bolduan says. No. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, succeeded Harry S. Truman.
So, the bottom line is, for Kamala Harris to win, she’d have to break history, be a Democrat to succeed Joe Biden when Biden’s approval rating is way under water at this point.
BERMAN: Again, it could happen, it just doesn’t in – you know, in recent history for sure. OK, registration numbers, Harry.
ENTEN: Yes. Republicans have been registering voters in big, huge numbers. They have been gaining in party registration versus the Democrats in the swing states with party registration. We’re talking Arizona. I think it’s a five-point – they’ve expanded their lead from five points from where it was back in 2020. How about Nevada? Big Republican registrations there. They like the early vote. How about North Carolina? Big Republican registration gains. How about Pennsylvania? We spoke about it before a few months ago, big Republican Party registration gains versus where – where – from where they were four years ago. So, Republicans are putting more Republicans in the electorate. The Democratic number versus the Republican number has shrunk. And so the bottom line is, if Republicans win, come next week, Donald Trump wins come next week. The signs all along will have been obvious. We would look at the right direction being very low, Joe Biden’s approval rating being very low, and Republicans really registering numbers. You can’t say you weren’t warned.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
