Psyche! No, it's not a (practicing) Democrat. It's not a Democratic Socialist either, even if one is inclined to make that distinction. But it may not be the Republican you'd guess, either.
Harvard-Harris released its August iteration of its comprehensive and longitudinal polling yesterday. I included a sneak peek at the data in last night's Final Word relating to Kamala Harris' position for the 2028 Democrat presidential primary. As Alex Thompson reported on Twitter/X, Harris easily leads the field with 42% among Democrat respondents, having picked up five points since last month. Gavin Newsom trails badly in second place with only 18%, dropping six points from July. Everyone else is in single digits; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Jon Ossoff, and Josh Shapiro are in a virtual tie for third, scoring between seven and nine percent each. Harris also has commanding leads among black and Hispanic Democrats.
However, Harris does not win the favorability contest this month, although for some reason, she does come in third in a field of 17 political figures. Donald Trump edges her out, but he doesn't come in first. The winner is ...
Robert F. Kennedy Jr?
Told you that you wouldn't guess. Perhaps a couple of readers may have tapped into a burgeoning level of support for Trump's HHS Secretary, but he's not riding high on a Protection Racket Media surge. The US media industry has spent the last eighteen months painting RFK as a crank, but that seems to have had a negligible effect on Kennedy. He is one of only two figures in this poll to have a positive ranking (43/39), with the other being Marco Rubio, who has an identical +4 but a lower overall favorable score (38/34).
Fun fact: the only other figure in positive territory in this poll is Canadian PM Mark Carney, albeit at +1 and 27/26. One has to wonder whether this is just a measure of TDS. If so, it's not exactly demonstrating much power in the American electorate.
The same can be said for the status of other figures in this same survey. AOC (31/38) and Newsom (30/40) both are significantly underwater and well below not just Trump but also his two likeliest successors in 2028, Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance. (Vance leads Rubio about 2:1 in the 2028 primary question.) Even more significantly, the remaining Democrat figures score worse than either AOC or Newsom, and score worse than people like War Secretary Pete Hegseth (29/35), Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (27/37), and far below Elon Musk (39/46). Abdul El-Sayed (18/36) barely scores better than Vladimir Putin (14/67), and he trails Tucker Carlson (24/40) and Zohran Mamdani (25/39).
This looks like Democrats are getting led to the woodchipper in the midterms, and Republicans haven't even really kicked off their midterm campaigns attacking the DSA and the Marxists on this list. These low ratings may explain one more eye-popping shift in the generic Congressional ballot in this same poll:
Harvard/Harris poll | 8/28-8/30
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) September 2, 2026
(Likely voters)
Generic congressional ballot 2026
🟥Republican 51% (+2)
🟦Democratic 49% (-2)
—
(Registered voters)
Generic congressional ballot 2026
🟦Democratic 51% (+1)
🟥Republican 49% (-1)
——
(Registered voters)
President Trump approval… pic.twitter.com/LlFsSfXKYO
I want to believe. RCP has the aggregate generic congressional polling at D+5.7, but that includes a lot of polling this summer that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. This is the first poll in their aggregation showing the GOP with a lead in either registered or likely voter surveys. Will it be the last? Stay tuned.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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