WSJ What’s News - WSJ Poll: Kamala Harris Gets a Small Post-Convention Bump

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

P.M. Edition for Aug. 29. Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump 48% to 47% in the latest WSJ poll. And Apple and Nvidia are in talks to invest in OpenAI. Plus, an American F-16 jet fighter crashed in Ukraine on Monday, killing the pilot. Tracie Hunte hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's more cash on hand to grow with up to 55 interest-free days. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash business platinum. A Wall Street Journal poll finds Kamala Harris getting a small convention bounce as her popularity grows. This poll shows that she has successfully undertaken a candidate introduction.

84% of people in our poll say that they know enough about Harris' biography, her career and her policies to have a firm opinion of her. And Apple and Nvidia are in talks to invest in open AI. Plus, an American made F-16 crashes in Ukraine killing the pilot. It's Thursday, August 29th. I'm Tracy Hunt for The Wall Street Journal. This is a PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

move the world today. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say an F-16 jet fighter was destroyed in a crash Monday killing its pilot. The crash happened during a mission to help repel a massive Russian missile attack. This comes just weeks after the first of the American-made aircraft arrived in Ukraine. U.S. officials said initial reports indicate that the jet was not shot down. A person close to the Ukrainian military said the cause of the crash is unknown and an investigation is underway. The news that Ukraine lost one of its few F-16s and that a pilot who was one of its most well-known in the country was killed is a major blow

to Kiev. President Biden gave the green light to transfer the jets last year after months of pleading by Ukraine. The country had hoped that the aircraft would give them an edge in their ongoing war with Russia. But some U.S. officials expressed concern about sending pilots inexperienced on F-16s into combat. Apple and Nvidia are in talks to invest in OpenAI, a move that would strengthen their ties to a partner integral to their efforts in the artificial intelligence race. As we reported yesterday, venture capital firm Thrive Capital is leading the round. Apple rival Microsoft is also expected to participate. It couldn't be learned how much Apple, Nvidia, or Microsoft will invest in open AI this round.

Major U.S. publishers say a Florida law aimed at cracking down on sexual content in school libraries violates the First Amendment. According to a lawsuit filed today in Orlando Federal Court, the Florida statute known as HB 1069 has led to indiscriminate book banning. Under this law, parents and residents of a county can contest any material they believe contained pornographic or sexual content. According to the lawsuit, county school districts have eliminated hundreds of titles, including classics like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Source Books, and HarperCollins Publishers, which like the Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp, are leading the lawsuit. Also joining the lawsuit are the Authors Guild, a trade group representing thousands of published writers and several bestselling authors, including Jody Pico, John Green, and Angie Thomas. A Florida administration spokesperson didn't return a request for comment. Florida is among several Republican-led states that have put school libraries on a tighter leash in the last few years after parents and conservative activists accused librarians

of exposing children to sexually explicit content. The U.S. stock market escaped disappointing Nvidia results largely unscathed. The Nvidia-less Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6% or 244 points, notching its 25th record of the year. The S&P 500 finished roughly flat, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell just 0.2%. Coming up, a new poll from the Wall Street Journal finds Kamala Harris with a small lead over Donald Trump. That's after the break. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you.

It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. A Wall Street Journal poll out today shows Vice President Kamala Harris having a narrow lead in the presidential race over Donald Trump. This bump follows the Democratic National Convention, where Harris stepped out of President Biden's shadow and established herself as a candidate. Wall Street Journal reporter Aaron Zittner joins us now to dissect the numbers.

Hi, Aaron. Hey, good to be with you. First of all, what does this poll say? Well, this poll is the latest of many to say this is a very close race. On a head-to-head ballot, just testing Harris and Donald Trump, Harris has 48% support to Trump's 47% support.

So that's a one point difference well within the polls margin of error. When we test the two candidates on a ballot with third party and independent candidates, but not RFK Jr. He's no longer in the race. She's ahead by two points, 47% to 45%. That also is within the margin of error. So this race is close, but this is the first time that on a head-to-head ballot any Democratic candidate is ahead of Trump in about a year and a half. So this shows Harris with momentum. Is that enough? Here's the bigger picture. You spin back just a few weeks, Joe Biden was the nominee and voters knew Kamala Harris

only faintly. She was overshadowed by others in the administration and she didn't have a well-defined public image. This poll shows that she has successfully undertaken a candidate introduction. 84% of people in our polls say that they know enough about Harris' biography, her career, and her policies to have a firm opinion of her. And what do they think? Well, 49% have a favorable view of her and 49% an unfavorable view. Those are pretty good numbers.

They're better than she was posting before by a lot, and in fact, that's a higher favorability rating than voters give to Donald Trump. When we ask people about the traits of Trump and Harris, both of them are viewed about the same as a candidate who can bring needed change. Both are viewed as candidates who will look out for American workers. Both are viewed as candidates who are effective. That's a pretty good introduction to someone who was dimly known by the public.

And the other thing that's important here is compared to where Joe Biden was late last year, Harris has really eaten into Donald Trump's lead when we ask which candidate can best handle the economy and best handle inflation. Keep in mind that Donald Trump has spent a huge amount of effort, both in his online social media and in his campaign ads, trying to tarnish Kamala Harris. He's calling her a communist.

He says she's at fault for immigration failures at the border. There's little evidence in this poll that his efforts to dirty up her public image are successful, at least so far. How have demographics shifted for Harris and Trump? We've learned a lot about that. When Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket, the Democratic coalition was fraying. Some important pillars of the Democratic coalition, black voters, Latino voters, young voters, were walking away from the party.

Harris has gone a long way to reassembling that Democratic coalition and bringing those voters back. She keeps improving with black voters and Latino voters. But she's not where Biden was in 2020, according to the exit polls of that year. Remember, Joe Biden barely won the last election. He won the national vote by about four and a half points. But those swing states, they came down to a tiny handful of just a few tens of thousands of votes. Of course, this poll is on a national level.

What have we seen there that can indicate how the candidates are doing in crucial swing states? Well, that's an important point. This is not a poll of any swing state. We all know that looking at recent polls of the swing states, it's very close there. The nation overall swings a bit more democratic than the swing states do It's very close there. The nation overall swings a bit more democratic than the swing states do, and that's because Democrats run up the score in populous states like California and New York, and that kind of gives a

democratic tilt to the national polls, which doesn't match the state polls. So we have to keep in mind the limits of polling. No poll can tell you who's going to win the state of Wisconsin, which was decided by less than one percentage point right now. It's just too blunt an instrument. And again, this is a national poll, not a poll of any swing state. Erin Zittner is a reporter and editor in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau. Street Journal's Washington Bureau. They may know how to code, but can they type? Gen Zers, that tech-savvy generation born between 1997 and 2012, can do almost anything on a computer except type without looking at the keyboard.

Over the past 25 years, the number of U.S. high schools that teach typing has fallen drastically. The U.S. Department of Education says that about 44% of high school grads in 2000 had taken a keyboarding course. By 2019, that number had dropped to 2.5%. Wall Street Journal technology reporter Georgia Wells spoke to our Tech News Briefing podcast. Educators tell me that schools have gotten rid of courses and topics that are not explicitly tested on standardized exams. Typing is not the only casualty there, but typing is one of the significant ones.

One concern I heard was like when students enter the workforce, if there's like a computer or a setup that they have to adapt to, that could be a steep learning curve. But there's no evidence yet that this is preventing students from adapting. Some of the teachers I spoke with said that one of their fears is that a lot of young people use the devices in their lives as consumption tools rather than tools to create. And so they were arguing that if students learned to type faster and sooner that they'd be more comfortable creating content on their devices, rather than just having a sit back experience. And you can hear more about Gen Z's typing troubles in tomorrow's tech news briefing.

And speaking of schools, many school districts around the country are banning cell phones in classrooms. Is your district one of them? What's your reaction? And what questions do you have about what this means for your kids? Send a voice memo to wnpod at wsj.com or leave a voicemail with your name and location at 212-416-4328. We might use it on the show. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienimé with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. I'm Tracy Hunt for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning.

Thanks for listening.