Since taking the reins last month as presumptive nominee of the Democratic party, Vice President Kamala Harris has seen a sharp rise in the polls over Biden’s performance.
The endgame of the presidential race is still months away and it’s too early to draw hard conclusions from current polling numbers — which are likely to shift and sway over the next three months.
But several recent nationwide polls show Harris with a slight lead over Republican nominee former President Donald Trump, even as the average among the critical battleground states remains tight.
Will Trump or Harris win?
A CBS News and YouGov poll of likely voters concluded on August 16 shows Kamala Harris polling at 49% nationally to Donald Trump’s 47%.
CBS’s polling also shows that the percentage of registered Democrats who say that they’ll vote in November is up 6% from a month ago, from 81% to 87%, while that same measure is down for Republicans, from 90% to 88%.
Among likely voters, CBS found that top issues influencing votes for president were the economy (83%), inflation (76%), the state of democracy (74%), crime (62%), gun policy (58%), the U.S.-Mexico border (56%) and abortion (51%).
There’s a relatively large gap between the two presidential candidates in terms of how familiar voters are with their platforms in the CBS poll. A full 86% of respondents said they knew what Trump stands for but only 64% said the same of Harris.
This could perhaps give Harris an opportunity to expand her appeal as she looks to further define her political persona and her policy platform under the spotlight of this week’s Democratic National Convention.
Trump is still in the lead among respondents who say that their main voting issues are the economy, inflation and border issues.
Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance cast spurious doubt on the reliability of polling broadly, telling Fox News that “The media uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict with Republican voters.”
The Trump campaign has, however, plugged polling numbers before, when they were in his favor.
Emerson College shows Harris up, at 48% compared to Trump’s 44%.
An August 13 poll by The Economist has Harris at 46% and Trump at 44%.
A Washington Post /ABC News/Ipsos poll, also concluded August 13 shows Harris in the lead, 47% to 44%.
The New York Times ’ national polling average puts Harris ahead with 46% against Trump’s 45%.
A smaller number of polls still show Trump ahead—a poll from RMG Research and the Napolitan Institute shows Trump leading, 49% to 47% and another from J.L. Partners and Dailymail.com show him up 43% to 41%.
In a poll conducted August 9-12, Fox News had both Trump and Harris at 45%.
Who is winning on the state level?
The picture becomes more complicated when you start looking at individual states. Because of the electoral college, being ahead nationally doesn’t necessarily translate into taking office in January.
According to New York Times averages, Harris had pulled ahead of Trump in several important Rust Belt battleground states including Michigan (49-47%), Wisconsin (49-47%) and Pennsylvania (49-48%).
The Times average shows Trump holding his lead in certain Sun Belt states including Georgia, where he’s ahead 49% to 46% and in Arizona Trump and Harris both have 47%.
However, a Times/Siena poll from Thursday has Harris winning in Arizona, 47% to 43%, though it still shows Trump up in Nevada (46 to 44%) and in Georgia (47 to 44%.)
Emerson College shows Trump up very slightly in Pennsylvania, with both him and Harris rounded to 47%. Polls earlier this month from Franklin and Marshall College and Quinnipiac University, however, both show Harris up in Pennsylvania by 3 points, 46% to 43% and 48% to 45%, respectively.
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Who will win the 2024 election? What the polls say ahead of DNC
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