‘IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE’: HAS THE RACE REALLY CHANGED? It has now been two weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. It’s always hard to get a quick handle on public reaction to a huge event like that, but after a couple of weeks, the news has had time to sink in with voters, and it’s time to start looking at some new polling.

The bottom line is that so far, the Biden gambit, the sudden switch forced on the president by powerful Democratic Party insiders, appears to be working. In early July, before the wild series of events that rocked the race — Trump assassination attempt, GOP convention, J.D. Vance, Biden withdrawal, rushed delegate vote for Harris — Trump had a lead of slightly more than 3 points over Biden in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Now, two weeks after the Biden/Harris swap, Trump’s lead over Harris is less than a point.