Topline
Vice President Kamala Harris has a single-digit lead over former President Donald Trump in the seven most recent national polls — as surveys show a near dead-heat contest for the White House, marked by tossups in all seven swing states, leaving the race wildly unpredictable as the election approaches.
Kamala Harris speaks during a CNN presidential town hall on October 23 in Aston, Pennsylvania.
Key facts
Harris is up 49%-48% in the latest HarrisX/Forbes poll of likely voters released Thursday — but about 10% of likely voters and 16% of all registered voters could still change their minds.
Harris also leads Trump 49%-47% among likely voters in the latest Economist/YouGov survey on Wednesday, with 2% unsure and about 3% supporting other candidates (margin of error 3.6) – down slightly from Harris ‘ 49%-46% lead last week.
Harris is up 51% to 47% — with just 3% still undecided — in a very large likely voter poll from the Cooperative Election Study, a survey supported by several universities and conducted by YouGov, which surveyed about 50,000 people from Oct. 1 to Oct. 1 questioned. 25.
Trump also trails Harris 44%-43% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday (3-point margin of error), marking a narrowing lead for Harris since she entered the race in July, with the previous Reuters/Ipsos poll showed her lead by two points.
Harris leads Trump by three points, 50%-47%, in Morning Consult’s weekly poll, also released Tuesday (1 point margin of error), after leading by four points, 50%-46%, in the previous two polls of the group.
Harris leads Trump by four points, 51%-47%, in an ABC/Ipsos poll of likely voters released Sunday, up slightly from her 50%-48% lead in early October, while a CBS/YouGov poll of Sunday’s Harris shows 50%-49%, a shift from the vice president’s 51%-48% lead in mid-October (the ABC poll had a margin of error of 2.5 and the CBS poll’s margin of error was 2 ,6).
An Emerson College Polling survey (Oct. 23-24) released Saturday shows the two candidates tied at 49%, after Harris led 49% to 48% a week earlier (the poll has a margin of error of 3), and it’s the first time in Emerson’s weekly survey that Harris hasn’t had a lead since August.
Trump and Harris are also tied at 48% of likely voters in a New York Times/Siena poll released Friday (margin of error 2.2), results that are “not encouraging” for Harris as Democrats have won the popular vote in the recent election, even then they lost the White House, the Times notes.
The Times poll represents a decline in support for Harris since the newspaper’s previous poll in early October showed her with a 49%-46% lead over Trump, while at least three surveys in the past week show Trump a has a narrow lead and six others thought Harris is leading.
In fact, the candidates are dead, at 47%, in a CNN/SSRS poll released Friday (margin of error 3.1), which also represents a downward trend for Harris, who led Trump 48% to 47% in the September poll the groups, while their poll, just after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, showed Trump with 49% support and Harris with 46%.
Trump is ahead 48% to 46% in a CNBC survey of registered voters released Thursday (margin of error 3.1), and he leads 47% to 45% in a Wall Street Journal registered voter survey Wednesday (margin of error 2.5) — a shift in Trump’s favor since August, when Harris led 47% to 45% in a Journal poll.
Trump also leads Harris by two points, 51% to 49%, nationally among likely voters, including those leaning toward one candidate, according to a HarrisX/Forbes poll released Wednesday (margin of error 2.5), and he is one point higher, 49% to 48%, without so-called leaners.
Harris has erased Trump’s lead over Biden since announcing her candidacy on July 21, although her lead has narrowed over the past two months, peaking at 3.7 points in late August, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average.
Important reminder: Presidential polls have often been wrong
And there’s a lot of speculation about why they’re wrong this year – and who could benefit from it. Read all about it in this story.
Who do the polls predict will win the election: Harris or Trump?
Trump is favored 52 times out of 100 to win the Electoral College, compared to 47 for Harris, according to FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast.
Big number
1.2. That is the number of points by which Harris leads Trump in the FiveThirtyEight polling average. Meanwhile, the RealClearPolitics polling average shows Trump up 0.5 points, and Nate Silver has Harris up 0.9 points in his Silver Bulletin forecast.
How does Harris perform against Trump in swing states?
Harris leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Trump leads in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona; according to the Silver Bulletin, they are equal in Nevada. However, many of the seven swing states have margins of less than one percentage point.
Surprising fact
An NBC News poll released on September 29 found that while Harris still leads Trump among Latinos, the lead is narrowing. The NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll — conducted September 16-23 among 1,000 registered Latino voters — found that 54% supported Harris, compared with 40% who backed Trump and 6% who said they were unsure know who they would vote for. Support for Harris is higher than when Biden ran against Trump, NBC said, but is still significantly lower than the lead Democratic candidates have had in the past, including a 36-point lead in 2020 polls and a lead of 50 points in the 2016 polls. The poll had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
How has the debate affected the polls?
Pre-debate surveys showed Harris’ polling surge appeared to be stalling, including an NPR/PBS/Marist poll of registered voters from September 3 to 5 that showed Harris leading Trump 49% to 48%, a decline compared to a three-point lead in August. Most post-debate polls show that the majority of respondents believe Harris won the debate, but not enough to significantly influence the horse race between the two. A New York Times/Siena poll of likely voters released on September 19 found that a majority of voters in each demographic group gave positive reviews of Harris’ debate performance on September 10, with 67% overall saying they liked it did, compared to 40% who said the same about Trump. Harris rose 52%-46% among likely voters and 51%-47% among registered voters in an ABC News/Ipsos poll taken just days after the September 11-13 debate, essentially unchanged from versus her six-point lead with likely voters. in late August and early August ABC/Ipsos polls — even though 63% of Americans said Harris won the debate.
Important background
Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 after weeks of resisting calls from within his own party to end his re-election bid following his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate. He immediately endorsed Harris and she announced plans to seek the nomination. The party quickly coalesced around her, with 99% of Democratic delegates voting to officially nominate her during a virtual roll call ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, weeks after Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his pick for vice president. ABC News hosted the first debate between Harris and Trump on September 10 from Philadelphia. Harris’ rise in the polls comes with an increase in Democratic enthusiasm for the election, which has nearly doubled since Harris entered the race, from 46% in June to 85% now, while enthusiasm among Republicans has stagnated on 71%. according to a Monmouth University poll released on August 14.
Read more
New HarrisX/Forbes poll: Trump leads Harris by 2 points, but 12% are still deciding (Forbes)
Elections 2024 Swing State Polls: Latest Surveys Show Trump in Nevada, Georgia (Update) (Forbes)
Nevada 2024 Trump-Harris Polls: Trump Up 1 Point in Latest Poll – While Harris Struggles with Latinos (Forbes)
Georgia 2024 Trump-Harris Polls: Trump Leads in Latest Poll – But Undecided Voters Could Sway Results (Forbes)
Trump-Harris polls Arizona 2024: Trump up 3 points in latest poll (Forbes)
Trump-Harris polls Michigan 2024: Harris narrowly leads in latest survey (Forbes)
Pennsylvania 2024 Trump-Harris polls: Harris leads crucial swing state in latest survey (Forbes)
Trump-Harris polls in Wisconsin 2024: Harris leads by 3 points in latest survey (Forbes)
2024 Trump-Harris polls in North Carolina: Trump leads by 3 points in latest survey (Forbes)
