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In less than 53 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will face Donald Trump in the 2024 US elections.
New polls show Harris has seen a surge in popularity with voters after the candidates faced off during the presidential debate in Philadelphiathe first since the president Joe Biden resigned from the Democratic ticket in July.
All Polls show that Harris “won” the debate in the eyes of votersSo how will she fare against Trump in November?
Harris has a 2.8-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, compiled by Five Thirty-eightOn average, Harris was slightly ahead of Trump nationally. polls.
However, a brand new poll — taken within two days of Tuesday’s debate — shows Harris with a +5 point lead over Trump among registered voters.
A national poll of 1,405 registered voters by Ipsos and Reuters showed Harris receiving 47 percent of the vote and Trump 42 percent.
That puts Harris’s margin 1 point wider than in the same poll in late August, when Harris had 45% of the vote and Trump had 41% (a 4-point margin).
This stronger lead suggests that the debate had a positive impact on public perception of Harris, which could revitalize her declining lead.
All Polls So Far suggest Harris won the debate in the eyes of voters, and a longtime Republican pollster has warned that this means the end of Trump.
Perhaps most importantly, half of independent voters believe Harris won the debate, according to a Reuters poll. That’s a sharp shift from the Biden-Trump faceoff in June, when 62% of respondents saw Trump as the winner.
At the same time, a third (31%) of Republicans said neither candidate won the debate, compared to just 6% of Democrats and a quarter of voters overall (24%).
The debate has certainly shaken Republicans’ confidence in their candidate. However, it remains to be seen whether this will impact their vote choice.
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Where are they located?
A CNN snapshot poll after the first Trump-Harris debate shows that Harris has managed to turn the tide with some voters.
After the debate, more voters believe Harris understands the problems of people like them better (44%) than Trump (40%). Before the debate, the opposite was true.
Another poll earlier this week (before the debate) of The New York Times/Siena College found that former President Trump led Harris overall by a slim +1 point margin, 48% to 47%.
The same poll found that nearly a third of voters (28%) felt they needed to know more about Harris, compared to 9% who would say the same about Trump.
Although it is too early to tell, the candidates’ performances in the debates may have changed the game.
Approval rates drop
A series of polls by YouGov and The economist, A survey conducted just before the debate (until September 10) revealed that no major politician managed to win the hearts of voters.
All presidential candidates are in the red, with voters having varying degrees of unfavorable net opinion.
The only candidate who has come away more unscathed is Democratic Vice President Tim Walz, who enjoys a neutral approval rating.
Although Harris is at -3 overall, about 48 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of her, which is higher than any other major politician.
Incumbent President Biden is suffering the most, with 56% of voters giving him an unfavorable opinion, a net negative score of -13.
State by State
The pre-debate Morning Consult poll shows substantial swings in presidential support across 14 states, with Trump and Harris tied in Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
However, each state tells a different story. A new round of polls from Morning Consult surveyed voters in 14 states through September 8 and found that Harris has the largest lead in Maryland, with a margin of +32 points. For Trump, his largest lead is in Texas, with +8 points over Harris.
The two candidates are tied in Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, while Trump only has a +2 point lead in Florida, smaller than in most polls in recent months.
Trump also leads by +2 points in Arizona, a state that has voted Republican in every presidential election since the 1950s — except 2020, when Biden won the state by 0.3%.
Independents
In particular, our analysis of the Morning Consult poll above shows that Independent voters in Texas and Florida lean toward Harris, despite the fact that both states are Trump strongholds.
In a crucial shift, Harris also leads Trump by +7.7 percent among independent voters, according to a new Emerson College poll (through September 4).
It will be crucial for Harris or Trump to win the independent vote. They are also the group most likely to vote for a third-party candidate, although with RFK Jr. out of the race, that percentage has dropped to just 4% of independents.
According to a national poll by Emerson College, 49.5% of independents say they would vote for Harris, compared to 41.8% for Trump.
That’s a substantial increase from the same poll a month ago, which showed Harris narrowly ahead of Trump (46% to 45%) among independent voters.
Still, 5% of independent voters say they are still undecided, and this elusive group of voters is hard to pin down, with wider variation across polls and regions than other demographics. Still, Harris can be credited with mobilizing the nonpartisan voter base, whose support has been much stronger since Biden stepped down.
Demography
An Activote poll shows that Trump’s main supporters remain male voters, people aged 65 and over, and white voters without a college degree.
However, Harris and Trump are tied in the 50-64 age group in this poll, which previously leaned toward Trump.
Harris is performing best with young voters, women and black voters, among whom Harris has a +52 point lead.
Meanwhile, Trump has a +6 point lead among Latino voters.
While Trump won 63% of the vote in rural areas, Harris led among urban (58%) and suburban (56%) voters.
Suburban voters chose Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, while in 2020 Biden tipped the scales in favor of the Democrats.
