By: Summer

Here’s what the latest polls say about the 2024 presidential election from the Independent’s data correspondent.

Vice President Kamala Harris is making a bid for the White House with running mate Tim Walz after replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket just a few months before Election Day.

A new poll suggests that Harris has the only positive approval rating of any candidate and leads in almost all battleground states.

So how will Harris fare against Donald Trump and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, this November?

Who’s ahead in the national polls?

Harris now 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, though the race remains tight.

What do voters think?

A fresh poll from Emerson College (August 12-14) shows that Kamala Harris is the only candidate for whom voters have an overall favorable opinion, at +2 percent.

This is significantly more positive than Trump and his running mate Vance, who have a net -10 unfavorable rating, according to the poll of 1,000 US likely voters.

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Harris has the only positive rating of the candidates

Meanwhile, VP pick Walz Has an overall neutral favorability rating, with 39 percent of voters holding a favorable view and 39 percent holding an unfavorable view.

Interestingly, one in five voters (22 percent) said they had never heard of Walz a week after his selection. For JD Vance, the number was lower, at 12 percent.

When asked how much they approve of incumbent Joe Biden’s performance as President, voters showed net disapproval of -14 percent.

Fighting in the battlegrounds

In the seven battleground states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—the war is still being waged between the Democratic and Republican campaigns.

Research from the Cook Political Report shows that Harris is ahead in six out of seven states, with Trump holding strong in Nevada.

The poll shows Harris’s most robust lead in Arizona, where Biden won by just 0.4 percent in 2020.

Harris leads Trump in all swing states – except Nevada

This is a substantial swing from the same polls in May, with a Trump-Biden matchup, where Trump led in six states and tied in Wisconsin.

Yet polling in swing states continues to show variation from pollster to pollster, with a YouGov/CBS poll conducted up to the same date (August 2) suggesting neither candidate had a significant lead in battlegrounds.

Overall, battleground polls have consistently shown that Harris has picked up momentum from her predecessor’s trailing support and is on track to lead Trump in some states.

Republicans are attempting to downplay Harris’s growing lead as a honeymoon phase, but the Democratic candidate has clearly maintained her momentum since entering the presidential race. 

The latest YouGov/Economist poll (August 11 to 13) shows that Harris’s lead has remained stable since Tim Walz was introduced onto the Democratic ticket, with no obvious boost against Trump.

Both candidates saw a +1 point increase from the same poll a week earlier, with Harris now at 46 percent and Trump at 44 percent.

Latest: Independents split on major candidates

Independent voters are still largely split on the two candidates, with 36 percent planning to vote for Harris and 37 percent for Trump.

National polls have shown significant variation in how Independent voters are leaning since these voters are a wide-ranging group by nature. Neither candidate has emerged as the obvious favorite just yet.

Much of the latest New York Times/Siena College poll was conducted as Walz joined Harris on the campaign trail and shows the vice president with a four-point lead in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, a substantial shift from Biden’s trajectory in the swing states.

Demographics

Trump’s key supporters remain male voters, the 45-64 age group, and white voters with no college education. However, in the last group, Trump appears to have lost some of his leverage over Harris compared to Biden.

Harris polls best with young, female, and Black voters, among whom Harris has a +68 point lead.

Battlegrounds: Harris leads Trump in most demographics

Though Harris appears to be making significant headway in both national and battleground polls, one challenge her campaign faces is a possible “personality gap.”

A previous NYT/Siena poll showed that while Harris polled stronger than Trump on several characteristics — intelligence, presidential temperament, and caring about “people like you” — respondents were still far more likely to view Trump as a stronger leader.

Harris is seen as more intelligent, but Trump is a stronger leader

And as Harris-Walz campaigned in Michigan, a Redfield and Wilton/Telegraph poll told a confusing story. It showed that battleground voters align more with Democratic policy positions on issues like the economy and policing, but they “trust Trump more” than Harris on the same issues.

As Harris has more time to cement her position as the Democratic presidential candidate, the gap between party alignment and candidate favor may narrow since Trump has had some eight years to broadcast his policy positions to voters.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/harris-trump-poll-latest-updates-2024-election-states-b2597984.html