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Vice President Kamala Harris makes bid for White House with running mate Tim Walz after replacing president Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket just a few months before election day.
Harris officially accepted the Democratic nomination last week. Independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr suspended his presidential campaign on August 23, endorsing Donald Trump for president.
While Kennedy’s support could provide a boost to Trump’s declining national vote, it’s not yet clear what independent voters will actually do.
Meanwhile, Harris and Tim Walz have embarked on a new phase of their campaign, giving their first impromptu interview on CNN Thursday night. During this interview, Harris said his “values” had not changeddespite some reversals on key policy positions around immigration. She also pledged to appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected president and brushed off Trump’s remarks that she had recently “gone black.”
So how will Harris actually fare against Trump and his vice presidential pick, JD Vance, come November?
Harris has a 3.4-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, compiled by Five Thirty-eightOn average, Harris was slightly ahead of Trump nationally. pollsalthough the race remains tight with variations across states.
A new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University also shows Harris beating Trump by seven points when race and gender are taken into account by respondents.
“When voters are prompted to consider the candidates’ race or gender, Harris’ lead increases dramatically; when they are not, support is essentially tied,” the university said in a statement. statement.
Harris also edged out Trump after last week’s Democratic National Convention, USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released on August 29.
Harris leads Trump 48% to 43%, an eight-point turnaround from June, when the former president led Biden by four points.
It also remains to be seen how Kennedy’s departure will affect the Trump-Harris polls, but This analysis of The Independent shows how RFK Jr. has higher support in states like New Mexico, and could unlock some of the youth vote.
Independents
A Morning Consult mega-poll of 11,501 registered voters shows that independent voters are also leaning more toward Harris, though there has been significant variation across surveys of this elusive group of voters.
It will be crucial for Harris or Trump to win the independent vote to take the lead in this election. This is the group most likely to vote for Kennedy, with 1 in 10 independents saying they would vote for a third-party candidate.
Meanwhile, an exclusive survey by Savanta has shown that Voters increasingly trust the Republican Party to handle major policy issues such as the economy, inflation, employment and crime.
Demography
A CBS/YouGov poll (through August 16) gives Harris a 3-point lead and shows a substantial gender gap growing between the two candidates, with more men supporting Trump and more women voting for Harris.
Trump’s main supporters remain male voters, the 45-64 age group, and white voters without a college degree. But in the latter group, Trump appears to have lost some of his leverage over Harris compared to Biden.
Harris is performing best with young voters, women and black voters, among whom Harris has a +65 point lead.
While Harris and Biden typically lead among white college-educated voters, the recent CBS poll suggests Harris has just a +5-point lead over Trump in that group — a far cry from the 20-plus point lead she posted in other polls a few weeks ago.
Fighting on the battlefields
In the seven key states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – the war is still raging between the Democratic and Republican campaigns.
A study by the Cook Political Report shows Harris leading in six of seven states, while Trump remains strong in Nevada.
The poll shows Harris’ lead is strongest in Arizona, where Biden won by just 0.4% in 2020.
This is a substantial change from the same polls in May, with a Trump-Biden showdown, where Trump led in six states and tied in Wisconsin.
Yet polls in swing states continue to show variation from pollster to pollster, with a YouGov/CBS poll conducted up to the same date (August 2) suggesting that neither candidate had a significant lead in any of the battlegrounds.
Overall, polls consistently show Harris regaining momentum from her predecessor’s support and on track to overtake Trump in some states.
What do voters think?
A poll conducted by Emerson College (August 12-14) shows that Kamala Harris is the only candidate whose overall voters have a favorable opinion, at +2 percent.
That’s significantly more positive than Trump and his running mate Vance, who have a net unfavorable rating of -10, according to the poll of 1,000 likely U.S. voters.
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Meanwhile, Vice President Walz’s choice has a generally neutral approval rating, with 39 percent of voters having a favorable opinion and 39 percent having an unfavorable opinion.
Interestingly, one in five voters (22%) said they had never heard of Walz a week after his election. For JD Vance, the figure was lower, at 12%.
When asked how much they approve of the way incumbent President Joe Biden is performing, voters showed a net disapproval of -14%.
