Mitch McCann: US Correspondent on Kamala Harris pulling ahead of Donald Trump in the polls

The polls are pointed in Kamala Harris’ favour. 

The Democratic candidate has taken an eight-point lead over the Republican’s Donald Trump, and with the addition of third-party candidates, Harris is leading 50% to Trump’s 42%. 

This is a significant change from a few months ago, where Joe Biden was trailing a few points behind Donald Trump. 

US Correspondent Mitch McCann told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the lead is likely a bit of a honeymoon phase at the moment, but the polls show it will be an incredibly close race. 

He said she’s gaining momentum, and not just with public opinion, as her fundraising has been astronomical. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
International correspondence with endsit Eye Insurance, Peace of Mind for
New Zealand business.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Dan's a US correspondents for US. Now, Hey, Dan, Hey,
what are the snacks that every nineties kid wanted?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Do you reckon? I don't know. I'm just glad I
didn't grow up in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
When did you grow the eighties? Did you?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
No?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
No, keep going back?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh my gosh, you're really old. I mean, surely, like,
what was it in the nineties would have been like
gob stoppers.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I honestly don't know. Mine is grunge. That's the only
thing I can think of.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I can't even think what the snacks were back then. Dan. Listen,
Carmala Harris. I mean, she's taken an eight point lead
over Donald Trump and new poll that's significant. She wins.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
I mean, that's huge.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
I think that's that's that's better than a margin of
error right now. And they showed that when you throw
in the third party candidate, that she's leading voters fifty
percent to Donald Trump's forty two percent. And that's huge
compared to what Joe Biden was trailing Donald Trump, which
was something like forty one to forty four percent.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Just a couple of months ago.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
So I think that this lead is a little bit
of a honeymoon phase right now. But the polls show
that this is still going to be a close race.
And you know, she's gaining momentum, and not just with
the public opinion. I mean, her fundraising has been astronomical.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Donald Trump made the point that she doesn't want to
be interviewed by anybody. Now, why would that be.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I think she has a case of biden itis in
a way. I don't think she is the best person
to string sentences together sometimes in interviews, and we've seen
that quite a bit. And she laughs. She has a
very nervous laugh. It's a great laugh, but it just
comes at inappropriate times. So I think she's holding off.

(01:43):
I think her handlers are holding off. They're trying to
ride this wave of positive press that she's received so far,
and then we'll kind of see what happens in the
coming weeks. But you're right, the press is a little
frustrated right now that they can't get some one on
one time with her.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, because I mean, look, she's obviously she's riding that honeymoon,
and that's a very smart thing to do. But at
some stage it will wane and she will have to
give interviews, won't she.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, she will because you have to find out where
she stands on.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Is she any good at debates?

Speaker 3 (02:12):
You know what I can honestly say, I've never really
I can't remember the last time she had any debate
against anybody. I think it's going to be a little
bit more precise than when Donald Trump goes off on
his tangents.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
But I think it's how Trump says things.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
It always makes him look like he's come out on
top and a lot of his debates even if what
he's seen is not factually correct.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Now, did you see the video of jd Vance going
to the airport on the tarmac and trying to sort
of get near Kamala Harris an Air Force two and
force her to talk to the media.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
I thought it looked like a scene out of something
like Entourage, the TV.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Show or something like that. Dick when he does stuff
like this.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I don't know why he was trying to do it
except that it made for some good TV and it
made for a lot of funny memes. I mean, there
was no way he was going to get some one
on one time with with Kamala Harris. Now, I think
if this had been twenty years ago, I think that
would have been a great move. I think it would
have been nice to have seen both those candidates shake
hands and wish each other the best of luck. But
stuff like that just doesn't happen these days.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Doesn't play well for him though, because I think he
looks like a bit of a clown.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Am I being idea? No, No, I think I think
you're right.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
I think it just looks like something an amateur did
and trying to get some face time, and unfortunately the
media gave.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
It to him.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Thank you. Hey, okay, so talk to me about why
we need to tell time on the Moon and what
the complications are. What's going on here?

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Well, apparently the moon because there's this there's less gravity
on the Moon than there's here on Earth. Things move
a little more quickly, just a microseconds every day compared
with Earth. So by getting this time system down that
NASA wants to do with international agencies around the world,
they want to establish what they're calling a Moon centric
time reference system. And you think, well, what would beg

(03:51):
I mean, that's like when we moved clocks at whatever
we do every four years because of leap here, right,
But this would provide time keeping benchmarks for spacecraft and
satellites that are up there, and landings and data transfers,
so a lot more things than we kind of give
it credit for. And I think that's why they're trying
to synchronize everything so everybody's sort of on the same plane.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Hey, have you watched this video cam? The body cam
of the half.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
And it was a lot more telling than I was
expecting to. You can see the officer being lifted up
by what you can see quite a few officers going.
I mean, it was like an episode of Cops almost.
As he's struggling to hoist himself up and he looks
over the edge of the roof and he can see
the shooter. And then he gets back down on the
ground and he's warning fellow officers about what's going on.

(04:38):
And then seconds later you see the shooter open fire
at the former president's rally. In the next moment, you
see the gunman dead within seconds of his first shot.
And I think this is giving a lot of I
don't want to see evidence necessarily, but it's certainly opening
a lot of eyes to what happened during that time
and giving some credibility to why the Secret Service is

(05:02):
having to answer all these questions interesting about how that
guy got up there and what he did.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Thank you, Dan, I really appreciate it. Go and enjoy
your weekend. That's Dan Mitchenson, now US correspondent. For more
from Hither Duplessy, Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks
it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
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