NBC News Flags Historic Gains By Kamala Harris In New Poll: A 'Reshaped' Race

NBC News’ Kristen Welker noted a historic increase in Vice President Kamala Harris ’ popularity as national political correspondent Steve Kornacki broke down the findings of a new poll on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.”

Kornacki said the “biggest” headline is how registered voters viewed the vice president versus how they saw President Joe Biden when they stacked the candidates up against former President Donald Trump .

The latest NBC News poll found Harris holding a 5 percentage point lead over the GOP nominee, 49-44%, which is within the margin of error for the survey. Biden trailed Trump by 2 percentage points, 45-43%, in a July poll .

“You can see that the race has been completely reshaped since Harris took the top of the ticket,” the “ Meet the Press ” host told Kornacki.

Kornacki added that 32% of voters polled had a positive view of Harris prior to Biden dropping out and the start of her campaign back in July. The latest poll shows 48% of respondents had a positive view of the vice president.

“This is the largest increase that we have seen for any politician since George W. Bush in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks,” Welker noted of Harris’ rise in popularity.

“Absolutely, Kristen, we were seeing numbers like this for years for Kamala Harris,” replied Kornacki, who pointed to the numbers from the July poll. “Now you’re seeing a really different story.”

Kornacki also flagged a “pretty pronounced gender gap,” adding that Harris is leading by 21 percentage points among women while Trump is leading by 12 percentage points among men.

Kornacki, later in the segment, said there’s been “a lot of positive news” for Democrats and Harris before pointing to the poll’s “very similar” numbers to responses from an October 2020 poll.

You can check out more on the new NBC News poll in the “Meet the Press” clip below.