Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) took on the frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, at last week's Democratic presidential debates, and a new poll shows that it may have paid off.
During the debate, Harris notably went after Biden for his nostalgia over working with segregationists in the Senate and his past opposition to busing for school integration.
In a new post-debate poll from CNN, Harris saw a 9 percent bump, now polling at 17 percent nationally, while Biden, saw a 10 percent decline, now polling at 22 percent.
Similarly, a post-debate poll from Morning Consult shows Harris gaining to land at 12 percent, which leaves her tied for third with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). In that poll, Biden lost five points, still leaving him in the lead with 33 percent.
"Kamala Harris was the perfect foil for Joe Biden here, because one of the things that she did show is that she is tough and she could handle that," Patrick Murrary, Director of Monmouth University's Polling Center told Cheddar Politics Monday.
Murray says that this decline was expected following Biden's poor performance, despite weeks of solid numbers attributed to his nearly universal name recognition.
"A lot of Democratic voters are just starting to tune into this race," Murray said. "So, they really don't know these candidates, except by reputation. That's part of the reason why Joe Biden's been in the lead."
After the debates wrapped up, Harris' campaign announced the California Senator raised more than $2 million from small donors in the 24 hours following her performance.
Murray said the jump in the polls following her viral takedown of Biden's dicey past wasn't about race, but rather, shows that she has what it takes to rival the incumbent, which could give some Biden supporters pause as they cite his electability.
"Most of Joe Biden's supporters are older, they are more conservative than the rest of the party, they really couldn't care less whether he's woke or not on issues of race," Murray explained. "What they want to know is that he can handle the campaign, and what they're hearing from the media right now is that he didn't handle that well."
While Harris took a big jump forward, candidates like Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke went downhill. O'Rourke actually fell from 4 to 2 percent in the Morning Consult poll.
"Beto O'Rourke, I think, had the worst night out of the two," Murray said of the candidate, adding that he thinks the former Texas Congressman will ultimately "fade."
Despite the drop in the polls, Buttigieg announced Monday that his campaign reeled in nearly $25 million in donations during the second quarter of the campaign, tripling the amount raised in the first quarter.
Though many political junkies remain skeptical of early polling in the race to 2020, Murray said their importance is significantly different than past years because they are driving the narrative.
Other major 2020 polls ー as well as Q2 fundraising numbers ー are expected to drop throughout the week.
A new report from ProPublica and the Washington Post found that Facebook Groups played a major role in the spread of misinformation linked to the January 6 insurrection with more than 650,000 posts claiming that Joe Biden's election victory was illegitimate.
Millions of Americans with young children have relied on the child tax credit since the federal government began issuing checks in July 2021. The last round of payments was sent out just before the Christmas holiday — at the same time as the omicron variant surged. Leah Hamilton, associate professor of social work at Appalachian State University, joined Cheddar to discuss what the end to the tax credit means as the U.S. sees the end of many relief programs and its highest number of COVID cases since the start of the pandemic. "It'll become harder for families to meet their basic needs, increasing national childhood poverty rates and the proportion of families who have difficulty putting food on the table, maintaining stable housing, and paying their bills," Hamilton said. She also pointed to research that the credit as a long-term investment in children offsets claims that it contributes to macroeconomic impacts like inflation.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over the week-end, just days after he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The call comes as Washington prepares to meet with Moscow on January 10, as tensions mount over Russia's military build up near its border with Ukraine. Cheddar News speaks with Mustafa Tameez, a former advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, about the issue.
Several Silicon Valley insiders are being accused of contorting a 1990s-era tax break to avoid taxes on millions of dollars of investment profits. The tax break is known as the qualified small business stock exemption, and it allows early investors in certain companies to avoid half of the taxes on up to $10 million in capital gains. A piece recently published in the New York Times says venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz replicated the tax exemption by giving shares of companies to friends and family, who would otherwise face a 23.8% capital gains bill. The CEO of Roblox is also accused of replicating the tax break for his family members at least 12 times. Although the loophole known as 'stacking' is considered to be legal, the Times piece implies that the exemption has been manipulated for the ultra-wealthy to become more wealthy. Greycroft co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Alan Patricof joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Chris Sommerfeldt, City Hall reporter for the New York Daily News, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses both the wins and losses of Bill de Blasio's eight years as New York City Mayor.
The push to regulate the gig worker economy is gaining steam as the share of workers who participate in freelancing through businesses like Uber and Lyft have also exponentially grown during the pandemic. Employment attorney Mark Kluger, founding partner at Kluger Healey, LLC, joined Cheddar to break down how the battle to reclassify gig workers will continue in the new year, and why the issue continues to generate conflict. "More and more workers are using gig work as their primary source of income and as a result of that they are not like employees in the sense that they don't have benefits like health insurance," Kluger noted.
2021 saw markets continue to be impacted by the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic -most recently in the form of the Omicron variant- in addition to the global supply chain shortage, and increased inflation. But it wasn't all bad news, as crypto soared throughout the year, and meme stocks continued to have a moment. With the year coming to a close, investors are keeping an eye out to see if they should expect more of the same in the new year. Chris Vecchio, Senior Analyst, at DailyFX tells us what market trends to be on the watch for in 2022.
