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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
In less than 43 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will face off against Donald Trump on the American people’s vote in the 2024 election.
After the debate, a flurry of polls came out in Harris’ favor, but new polls in the Sun Belt states, particularly Arizona, showed a significant improvement in support for Trump.
Other polls in northern battleground states show Harris holding large leads of more than five points in both Pennsylvania and Michigan, but a third battleground state is less clear.
With the candidates gearing up for the final stretch of the campaign and things hanging in the balance, how will Harris and Trump fare in November?
The latest average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight gives Harris a 2.9-point lead over Trump. On average, Harris has a slight lead over Trump in national polls.
But according to the latest New York Times poll, Trump is leading in three Sun Belt states, even as Harris appears to have a slight lead.
Trump holds a five-point lead over Harris in Arizona, a four-point lead in Georgia and a more modest two-point lead in North Carolina.
That’s a marked change from the same poll in August, when Harris was leading within the margin of error in both Arizona and North Carolina.
In Arizona in particular, the candidates’ support has effectively flipped, with Trump receiving 50% of the popular vote to Harris’ 45%, up from the opposite last month.
It’s worth noting that Harris is trailing Trump by just two points in North Carolina, 47% to 49%, a state Trump has won in each of the past two elections.
Arizona is a historically Republican state with 11 electoral votes that went to Biden in 2020, but Trump’s five-point lead there could be a concern for Harris’ campaign.
On the other hand, this is undoubtedly good news for the Trump campaign, which made frequent visits to the state this summer.
So why the change of direction?
In Arizona, which borders Mexico, about one in five voters (19%) say immigration is the most important issue affecting their vote, according to the same poll.
That’s second only to the economy as the top issue affecting voters across the state and the nation.
A majority of Arizona voters (51%) say Trump is better equipped to handle key issues, a reversal since August, when Harris was slightly more trusted.
This suggests that despite the overall enthusiasm for Harris’ debate performance, Arizona voters may actually support Trump and his approach to key issues.
Demographics
A separate poll conducted last week by The New York Times and Siena College found Trump and Harris deadlocked nationally, with each receiving 47 percent of the vote among likely voters.
This is a slight change from the same poll in early September, which surprisingly showed Trump leading Harris by +2 points.
A new poll of 2,437 voters conducted after the debate found that 67% said Harris performed well in the debate, while 40% said the same about Trump.
Harris still holds a large lead among women (a 12-point margin), but Trump leads by 14 points among men.
In particular, after the debate, Harris increased her share of the vote among those under 34 years old by 7 percentage points to 58 percent, putting her 21 points ahead of Trump.
Meanwhile, her lead among the 30-44 age group has narrowed to just four points behind Trump, but her lead among the 45-64 age group has also narrowed to just two points.
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A poll in early September found support for Harris was 12 points higher among college-educated white voters, and this group saw the biggest increase after the debate, giving Harris a 25-point lead with 61 percent of the vote.
Interestingly, a pre-debate poll by The New York Times found that nearly a third of voters (28%) felt they needed to know more about Harris, while 9% said the same about Trump.
But in that respect, the debates were beneficial for Harris: A New York Times poll found that half of voters (50%) felt they “learned a lot” about Harris from the debates, while only a third said the same about Trump.
Battlegrounds
A separate poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in three key battleground states showed Harris with a promising lead, but Trump still had room to turn things around.
In Pennsylvania, where the in-person debate was held last week, Harris led by six points with 51% of the vote to Trump’s 45%.
Harris also holds a five-point lead in Michigan with 50 percent support to Trump’s 45 percent.
Part of this may be due to Harris’ particularly strong support among women in Michigan, where her approval rating is above the national average.
“Despite the gender gap being as wide as Lake Michigan, Harris leads Trump among women by about 20 percentage points, while Trump leads Harris by half that number among men,” said Quinnipiac University analyst Tim Malloy.
Meanwhile, neither candidate has been able to build a substantial lead in Wisconsin, a state Biden won by just 0.63% in 2020, and the same trajectory could be repeated in November.
As mentioned above, Trump is currently leading in the battleground states of the South.
Likeability
The vice president’s overall favorability rating has declined since July 2021, which is not unusual for someone holding public office.
But on Sept. 18, for the first time in more than three years, Ms. Harris’ favorable and unfavorable ratings were equal, according to an average of all favorability polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
The debate may have been Harris’ chance to change public perception and ultimately foster more favorable opinions of herself and her campaign.
The same cannot be said for Trump, whose net favorability rating is -9.9% and has remained negative since the last election. J.D. Vance also entered the election with a negative rating, but that rating has only gotten worse over time, and is now averaging -10.7%.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Walz was the only candidate who entered the race ranked in favorability ratings and maintained his popularity, with an average favorability rating of +3.9, according to FiveThirtyEight.
However, incumbent President Joe Biden has also received negative ratings since September 2021, with the lowest average favorability rating at -14.6%.
Do you trust Trump and Harris?
On key issues, trust in Harris and trust in Trump are evenly split.
According to an ABC News poll, Americans believe Trump would do a better job of handling the economy, inflation and immigration, while Harris is more trusted on issues such as health care, gun violence and abortion.
The economy remains the most important factor for many voters, and The Independent’s analysis shows that economic issues are extremely important to independent voters in many key states.
As the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel approaches, Americans say they are increasingly confident (up 6 percentage points) in President Trump’s ability to handle a war between Israel and Hamas, but only half of Americans say the war will matter to their vote.
A CNN instant poll after the first debate between Trump and Harris suggested that Ms Harris had succeeded in turning the tide among some voters.
As a result of the debate, more voters believe Harris better understands the issues facing people like them (44%) than Trump (40%), up from the opposite before the debate.
Independent
In a key shift, Harris also leads Trump among independents by 7.7 percentage points, according to a new Emerson College poll (running through September 4).
For both Harris and Trump, winning over independent voters will be crucial to gaining an advantage in this election — a demographic that is also the most likely to vote for third-party candidates, but whose share of the independent vote has fallen to just 4% since RFK Jr. dropped out of the race.
According to a national poll by Emerson College, 49.5% of independents said they would vote for Harris, while 41.8% said they would vote for Trump.
That’s a big increase from the same poll conducted a month ago, when Harris had a slight lead over Trump among independents, 46 percent to 45 percent.
But 5% of independents say they remain undecided — an elusive group of voters that varies more across polls and regions than other demographics and is harder to pin down. Still, Harris can be credited with mobilizing this base of independent voters, whose support has grown much stronger since Biden dropped out.
Trump is winning rural voters 63 percent of the time, while Harris leads with both urban residents (58 percent) and suburban residents (56 percent).
Suburban voters chose Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Biden took the Democratic lead in 2020.
