York: 'Irrational exuberence': How much has the race changed?

It has now been more than two weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the 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, JD 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, Harris leads Trump by less than a point in the same average.

What has happened is precisely what Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio predicted when Biden pulled out. "We will start to see public polling — particularly national public polls — where Harris is gaining on or even leading President Trump," Fabrizio wrote in a July 23 memo. "The Democrats and the MSM will try and tout these polls as proof that the race has changed."

That is the story of the last two weeks and could be the story of the next two weeks before the Democratic convention, which will then add one more week of Harris celebration. Still, Harris is quickly backing away from positions she has held for years, and she has still not answered a single substantive question from any journalist in her two weeks as nominee.

In a new CBS News/YouGov national poll, Harris has the narrowest possible lead, 50% to 49%, in a head-to-head matchup with Trump. In the last CBS poll, conducted in July during the Republican convention, Trump had a five-point lead over Biden, 52% to 47%.

There have been other signs that Democrats and some independents are much more enthusiastic about Harris than they were about Biden. Last week, the Harris campaign announced that it raised $310 million in July. That is huge — a lot more than the $139 million Trump raised, which itself is pretty big.

Plus, there is the obvious fact that Democratic crowds appear more enthusiastic for Harris than they were for Biden. She held her first rally in Atlanta — no accident, given the huge importance of Georgia in the Electoral College battle — and she got a big, loud crowd.

As it turned out, a few days later, Trump had a rally of his own at the same site in Atlanta. He, too, got a big, loud crowd of people happy to be supporting him. Trump has been leading Biden in Georgia for months, and it appears he is still leading Harris, although likely by less.

Nevertheless, Trump has clearly had problems re-orienting his campaign. For obvious reasons: He ran against one candidate, Biden, for two years, focusing every thought and attack on Biden, Biden, Biden. Then Democratic insiders pulled off an unprecedented switcheroo, and Trump is no longer facing the opponent he built his campaign around. No candidate and campaign could change tracks without some rough patches.

Plus, Trump is still making some of the same mistakes he has made for years, regardless of his opponent. For example, in the big, enthusiastic Atlanta rally, Trump could not resist bashing Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who Trump still holds a grudge over the 2020 vote counting in Georgia, which Biden narrowly won. It made no sense, yet Trump could not stop himself from doing it.

On the other hand, Harris has had two weeks of the most positive press coverage imaginable, and after that the race is still tied. But is it a new race altogether? Has it been "reset," as some say? Are the issues somehow different? When Fabrizio wrote, "The Democrats and the MSM will try and tout these polls as proof that the race has changed," his next sentence was: "But the fundamentals of the race stay the same."

Obviously, Democrats hope that, with the assistance of a willing press, they can make the honeymoon last for the next three months. Maybe they can. But Republicans believe that, given Harris' weaknesses as a candidate and the weaknesses of her record, the current celebration can't continue forever, or even for three months. Fabrizio is probably right that the fundamentals of the race are still the same. It is Donald Trump's job to stay steady, and keep pursuing his three-part message, with one small change: 1) Things were good when I was president. 2) Things went to hell when Harris took office. 3) Elect me, and I'll make them good again. It's a simple message, and we'll see if it can withstand the current wave of Kamalamania.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.