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.

Harris officially accepted the Democratic nomination last week. Meanwhile, independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr suspended his presidential campaign on Friday, endorsing Donald Trump for president.

While Kennedy’s endorsement could add momentum to Trump’s dwindling national numbers, it’s still unclear what independent voters will do. Trump’s campaign has also announced an aggressive new strategy: “Think Trump on steroids,” an unnamed campaign source told CNN. “This is going to be an all-hands-on-deck approach.”

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

Who’s ahead in the national polls?

The latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight, shows Harris with a 3.4-point lead over Trump. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls, though the race remains tight with variation in swing states.

A new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University also shows Harris beating Trump by seven points when participants consider race and gender.

“When voters are made to think about the race or gender of the candidates, Harris’ lead grows substantially; when they’re not, support is essentially tied,” the university said in a statement.

Harris has not yet seen any positive boost from last week’s Democratic National Convention, according to a national poll undertaken by Outward Intelligence from August 18 to 22.

No DNC boost for Democrats?

As the Democratic National Convention comes to a close, the latest poll suggests that there was little shake-up, as Harris’ lead remains strong. This poll still shows Harris far ahead, with a +6-point lead over Trump, at 49.5 percent of the vote.

The numbers suggest that both candidates will see a boost in a straight Trump-Harris matchup, but Trump would close in on Harris’s lead, at 48 percent to her 52 percent.

It remains to be seen how Kennedy’s exit will affect Trump-Harris poll numbers, but this analysis from The Independent shows how RFK Jr. has higher support in states like New Mexico and could free up some of the younger vote.

RFK Jr.’s support tanked when Biden dropped out

An average of national polls showed that support for RFK Jr. nearly halved when Harris entered the presidential race in late July.

Independents

A Morning Consult mega poll of 11,501 registered voters shows that independent voters are also leaning more towards Harris, though there has been significant variation between different surveys of this elusive voter group.

Latest: Independents leaning toward Harris

Morning Consult polls show Harris has a +4-point lead among Independent voters, though 1 in 5 are still not committed to either candidate.

Capturing the independent vote will be crucial for either Harris or Trump to take the lead in this election. This was the most likely group to vote for Kennedy, with 1 in 10 independents saying they would vote for a third-party candidate.

Meanwhile, exclusive polling from Savanta showed that voters still trust the Republican Party more to handle significant policy issues like the economy, inflation, jobs, and crime.

Demographics 

A CBS/YouGov poll (up to August 16) has Harris at a 3-point lead and shows a substantial gender divide is emerging between the two candidates, with more men supporting Trump and more women voting for Harris.

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-Trump gender divide is growing

Trump’s key demographics remain older, white, non-college voters, while Harris’s lead among younger, black voters is growing.

Harris polls best with young, female, and Black voters, among whom Harris has a +65 point lead.

While Harris and Biden both typically led among white college-educated voters, the recent CBS poll suggests that Harris has only a +5-point lead over Trump in this group—a far cry from the 20+ point lead she showed in other polls a few weeks ago.

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

A new poll shows a growing lead for Harris in six out of seven swing states, with a +6-point lead over Trump in Arizona.

This is a substantial swing from the same polls in May, when a Trump-Biden matchup was held, and 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 consistently show that Harris has gained momentum from her predecessor’s trailing support and is on track to lead Trump in some states.

What do voters think?

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

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

For live updates on the US presidential election, click here.

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.

Harris has the only positive rating of the candidates

Joe Biden has the lowest, a net disapproval of -14 percent. Trump and Vance are at -10 net favorability, while Walz has an overall natural rating.

Interestingly, one week after he was selected, one in five voters (22 percent) said they had never heard of Walz. 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.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-harris-polls-presidential-race-b2601585.html