CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM

TO: TEAM TRUMP

FROM: TONY FABRIZIO & TRAVIS TUNIS

RE: HARRIS’ LIKELY POST-DNC BOUNCE

DATE: AUGUST 22, 2024

When Kamala Harris entered the race, we predicted that she would get a bump in the polls, aka the “Harris Honeymoon”. We said, “The honeymoon will be a manifestation of the wall-to-wall coverage Harris receives from the MSM. The coverage will be largely positive and will certainly energize Democrats and some other parts of their coalition at least in the short term.”

We’ve certainly had a front row seat to the “honeymoon.” In fact, the Media decided to extend the honeymoon for over 4 weeks now. The respected Media Research Center recently released an analysis of the media coverage of Kamala Harris and President Trump since Joe Biden dropped out. Their study found that 84% of the coverage of Kamala Harris was positive while 89% of the coverage of President Trump was negative. But even after all the fawning coverage of Harris and negative coverage of President Trump, we find this race fundamentally tied, particularly in the battleground states going into the DNC.

However, post-DNC we will likely see another small (albeit temporary) bounce for Harris in the public polls. Post-Convention bounces are a phenomenon that happens after most party conventions. In 2016, President Trump and Hillary Clinton both got an average 2-point bump after their conventions. Back in 1992, Bill Clinton got an 8-point bounce, while that same year, George H.W. Bush got a 5-point bounce. While they vary, the usual range is somewhere between 1 and 4 points according to a report by 538.

So don’t be surprised to see Harris get a temporary 2 to 3 point bump.

But when you see this bounce remember that in 1988, Gallup had Michael Dukakis up 17 on then-Vice President Bush in the immediate aftermath of the DNC. Most polls had John McCain up 2 to 4 points on Barack Obama in 2008 the week after the RNC. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 7-points on President Trump after her convention in the RCP average. We all know how those ended up. These bumps do not last.

The other thing to keep in mind is that while the media is going to focus on the national polls, we need to keep our eye on the ball – that is the polling in our target states. Our goal is to get to 270 and winning these states is how we do it. We’ll let the media make mountains out of molehills, while we keep driving forward, sticking to our winning plan of getting President Trump re-elected.

Read the full memo here.