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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
In less than 53 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will go head-to-head with Donald Trump as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.
Fresh polls show that Harris has seen a boost among voters, after the candidates faced off in the presidential debate in Philadelphia, the first since President Joe Biden stepped down from the Democratic ticket in July.
All polls show that Harris “won” the debate in the eyes of voters. So how will she fare against Trump in November?
Harris has a 2.8-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls.
However, a brand new poll — taken in the two days following Tuesday’s debate— shows that Harris has a +5 point lead over Trump among registered voters.
The nationwide poll from Ipsos and Reuters of 1,405 registered voters has Harris at 47 per cent of the vote, and Trump at 42 per cent.
This puts Harris’s margin up by 1 point compared to the same poll in late August, when Harris had 45 per cent of the vote and Trump had 41 (a 4-point margin).
The stronger lead suggests that the debate had a positive impact on public perception of Harris, which may revitalise her slowing lead.
All polls so far suggest that Harris won the debate in the eyes of voters, and a longtime Republican pollster has warned that this spells doom for Trump.
Perhaps, most significantly, half of independent voters believe Harris won the debate, according to a Reuters’ poll. This is a significant 180 from June’s Biden-Trump faceoff, when 62 per cent viewed Trump as the winner.
Meanwhile, a third (31 per cent) of Republicans said that neither candidate won the debate; compared to just 6 per cent of Democrats, and a quarter of voters overall (24 per cent).
The debate certainly knocked some confidence from Republicans concerning their candidate. However, whether this will have any impact on their voting choice, remains to be seen.
Make sense of the US election with The Independent’s experts in our exclusive virtual event ‘Harris vs. Trump: who will make history?’ Reserve your space here.
Where do they stand?
CNN’s snap poll following the first Trump-Harris debate shows that Harris managed to turn the tide with some voters.
Following the debate performance, more voters now believe Harris better understands the issues of people like them (44 per cent) compared to Trump (40 per cent). Before the debate, the opposite was true.
Another poll earlier this week (pre-debate) from The New York Times/Siena College found that former president Trump was leading Harris overall by a slim +1-point margin, at 48 per cent to 47 per cent.
This same poll showed that nearly a third of voters (28 per cent) felt they needed to learn more about Harris, compared to 9 per cent who would say the same about Trump.
Though it is too soon to say, the candidates’ debate performances may have turned this around.
Dwindling approval ratings
A set of polls from YouGov and The Economist, carried out right before the debate (up to September 10), found that no major politicians are winning the hearts of voters.
Every presidential candidate is in the red, with voters holding a net unfavorable opinion to different degrees.
The only candidate who has come out more unscathed is Democratic VP pick Tim Walz, who holds a neutral favorability rating.
Though Harris is overall at -3, some 48 per cent of voters hold a favorable opinion of her, which is higher than any other major politician.
Incumbent President Biden is suffering the worst of all, with 56 per cent of voters viewing him unfavorably, amounting to a -13 net negative score.
State-by-state
The pre-debate Morning Consult poll shows substantial variation in presidential support among 14 states, with Trump and Harris tied in Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina.
Each state tells a different story, however. A new set of polls from Morning Consult surveyed voters in 14 states up to September 8, finding that Harris has the strongest lead in Maryland, with a +32 point margin. For Trump, his strongest lead is in Texas, at +8 points over Harris.
The two candidates are tied in Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, while Trump has only 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 per cent.
Independents
In particular, our analysis of the above Morning Consult poll shows that independent voters in Texas and Florida are leaning towards Harris, despite both states being Trump strongholds.
In a pivotal shift, Harris also leads Trump by +7.7 per cent among independent voters, according to a new poll from Emerson College (up to September 4).
Capturing the independent vote will be crucial for either Harris or Trump to take the lead in this election. This is also the most likely group to vote for a third-party candidate, though with RFK Jr out of the race, this has dwindled to just 4 per cent of independents.
The nationwide Emerson College poll has 49.5 per cent of independents saying they would vote for Harris, compared to 41.8 per cent for Trump.
This is a substantial jump from the same poll one month ago, which showed Harris just inching ahead of Trump (46 per cent to 45 per cent) among independent voters.
However, 5 per cent of independent voters say they are still undecided, and the elusive voter group are difficult to pin down, with higher variation between polls and regions than other demographics. Nonetheless, Harris can be credited with mobilizing the non-partisan voter base, whose support is much stronger since Biden dropped out.
Demographics
An Activote poll shows that Trump’s key supporters remain male voters, the 65+, and white voters with no college education.
However, Harris and Trump are tied in the 50-64 age group in this poll, which previously leaned toward Trump.
Harris polls best with young voters, female voters, and Black voters, among whom Harris has a +52 point lead.
Meanwhile, Trump has a +6 point lead with Latino voters.
While Trump is taking home rural voters, at 63 per cent, Harris leads among both urban-resident (58 per cent) and suburban voters (56 per cent).
Suburban voters chose Trump over Hilary Clinton in 2016, while in 2020, Biden flipped the lead for Democrats.
