Harris leads Trump by 4 points in 3 battleground states in NYT/Siena College polls

By Kanishka Singh and Nilutpal Timsina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris leads Republican former President Donald Trump in three battleground states - Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan - by four points, according to polls by the New York Times and Siena College.

Harris is ahead of Trump by four percentage points in those three states, 50% to 46% among likely voters in each state, according to the surveys conducted from Aug. 5-9.

The margin of sampling error among likely voters was plus or minus 4.8 percentage points in Michigan, plus or minus 4.2 points in Pennsylvania and plus or minus 4.3 points in Wisconsin, the report added. In total, 1,973 likely voters were interviewed for those polls.

Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid on July 21 and endorsed Harris for the Nov. 5 vote against Trump after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June.

Harris' takeover has reenergized a campaign that had faltered badly amid Democrats' doubts about Biden's chances of defeating Trump or his ability to continue to govern had he won.

U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis after Palestinian Islamist group Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, had led to large protests and opposition against the Biden administration in those states, especially in Michigan from some liberal, Muslim-American and Arab-American groups.

About 200,000 people from those three states were "uncommitted" to supporting Biden in the Democratic primaries, citing Gaza policy. Harris has made some forceful public comments on Palestinian human rights and expressed a tonal shift, even though she has displayed no substantive policy differences from Biden on Gaza.

Polls showed that Trump had built a lead over Biden, including in battleground states, after Biden's debate performance, but Harris' entry to the race has changed the dynamic.

An Ipsos poll published on Thursday showed Harris led Trump nationally 42% to 37% in the race for the Nov. 5 election. That online nationwide poll of 2,045 U.S. adults was conducted Aug. 2-7 and had a margin of error of around 3 percentage points.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis)