It's now been two weeks since Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 Democrat nomination. Kamala Harris has yet to take a question from a reporter in that period of time, let alone hold a presser or sit down for an interview with any major media outlet. Normally a new candidate would rush to fill that space, but Harris appears to have adopted the Biden Basement Campaign Playbook, at least in the first fortnight.

Is that strategy working? To some extent. perhaps.  A new CBS/YouGov poll out yesterday shows Harris taking a narrow 50/49 lead over Donald Trump, for instance, largely because of new enthusiasm from Democrat voters:

Boosted by Democrats, younger and Black voters becoming more engaged and likely to vote, and by women decidedly thinking she'd favor their interests more, Vice President Kamala Harris has reset the 2024 presidential race. 

She has a 1-point edge nationally — something President Biden never had (he was down by 5 points when he left the race) — and Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied across the collective battleground states. 

That's an interesting way to phrase this finding: the collective battleground states. Harris has definitely narrowed the race in the seven swing states that CBS polled, but she hasn't taken a lead in any of them except Nevada, 50/48. Trump leads in North Carolina and Georgia by three, Wisconsin by one, and the other three states -- including Blue Wall Pennsylvania and Michigan -- are ties. And these results are apparently not from a full-sample poll, but are "derived from CBS News' statistical model," which uses other unspecified data.

As for the the issues, the most important are immigration and the economy in most other polls, but this poll doesn't attempt to quantify or rank them. They do test against them in the presidential vote, however, and Trump bests Harris on both. Oddly, CBS doesn't provide a slide with those numbers in its poll report, but they come in questions 39-40 and 45-46, and the results aren't even close:

If the Trump campaign can keep the focus on these issues -- rather than, say, trying to settle scores with Brian Kemp -- even a basement campaign won't help Harris keep her honeymoon going. Looking at the crosstabs (embedded at the bottom of the linked CBS News report), Harris' performance on the economy is abysmal in almost every demo. Only 53% of Democrats think Harris will make them better off financially, and that's the only demo reporting a majority for that answer. Only 41% of blacks and 29% of Hispanics think Harris will benefit their finances. In every demo except Democrats, blacks, and liberals, pluralities or majorities say Harris will make them worse off financially.

What about Trump? Except for the above demos and Hispanics, and a tie at 41% among women, all other demos have a plurality or majority believing they'll do better with Trump. The better/worse-off differences are quite striking:

• Men: 50/35 Trump, 24/49 Harris
• Women: 41/41 Trump, 25/40 Harris
• Indies: 43/37 Trump, 16/47 Harris
• College graduates (!): 44/39 Trump, 26/43 Harris

You can see why CBS preferred not to graph these results. If this election follows The Carville Rule, then Harris' boost will be short-lived indeed.

The demos are even worse for Harris on immigration. Almost every demo but Democrats and black voters have either clear pluralities or majorities believing that Harris will make the border crisis worse. In contrast, Trump has a majority in every demo -- including Democrats (53/11) and liberals (51/10) -- believing he will decrease the number of migrants crossing the border. In most demos, those numbers are in the 70s. Trump has strong credibility on border issues, even more than on the economy.

The strategy should be clear for Trump. Focus on the economy and the border and to a certain extent ancillary issues tied to both -- crime, inflation, wage erosion. Don't provide any distractions from the message, and force Harris to respond to these. The more distractions provided, the longer Harris can hide from the media and voter scrutiny.

What about the honeymoon? Harris has managed to get Democrats enthusiastic, but really only Democrats. The crosstabs on this question about Harris replacing Biden don't show any significant enthusiasm, perhaps in part because Harris hasn't done much to seize the moment. Only 52% describe themselves as enthusiastic (31%) or satisfied (21%) overall. The only demos where the enthusiasm number gets over 35% are among Democrats (67%), liberals (64%), and blacks (50%), the latter a surprisingly low number considering Harris' black identity. Only 34% of women are enthusiastic about Harris' anointment. These numbers suggest that the honeymoon period is not likely to last long.

And this is just one poll, too. The overall RCP average still shows Trump ahead and largely holding his voters in place over the last two weeks:

Worth noting, too: In actual polling in RCP's aggregation, Trump still leads in most of the battleground states in the post-Anointment period:

• Arizona: Trump +2.8
• Wisconsin: Trump +0.2
• Michigan: Harris +2.0
• Pennsylvania: Trump +1.8
• North Carolina: Trump +5.5
• Georgia: Trump +0.8

These are thin margins and the polls could still shift. But there is neither an explosion of enthusiasm for Harris evident yet, nor any momentum except for Harris catching up to Biden's pre-debate levels. The race hasn't actually changed much since that status quo ante, and if Trump can remain relentlessly on message on the economy and immigration, the data shows a clear path to victory. 

But of course, that's a mighty big if.