US Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a five percent lead over Republican rival Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. This information was found in a poll published by NBC News on Sunday (September 22). This is the first time Harris has received such a positive response from the public since receiving the Democratic Party’s nomination. British news agency Reuters reported this news.
In this poll of 1,000 registered voters, 48 percent of people are in favor of Harris. In July this rate was 32 percent. The previous time an NBC poll had seen such a jump in popularity was after 9/11, for former President George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, 40 percent of voters gave a positive opinion to Trump. In July this rate was 38 percent.
The survey conducted from September 13 to 17 indicated that the target deviation could be around 3percent, the agency said.
In another poll conducted by CBS News, Harris leads Trump by 4 percentage points. 52 percent of Americans voted for Harris, compared to 48 percent for Trump. The margin of error in this survey may be more or less 2 percent.
These results are consistent with other national level surveys including Reuters/Ipsos. Looking at the results of all the polls, it is believed that the upcoming November 5 US presidential election can be fiercely competitive.
But the transformation in the presidential contest goes well beyond the horse race. For starters, Harris’ favorability has jumped 16 points since July, the largest increase for any politician in NBC News polling since then-President George W. Bush’s standing surged after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Harris also holds the advantage over Trump on being seen as competent and effective, as well as on having the mental and physical health to be president — a reversal from Trump’s leads on those qualities when he was matched up against Biden.
And in a contest between a sitting vice president and an ex-president, featuring an electorate that overwhelmingly thinks the U.S. is “on the wrong track,” Harris has the upper hand on which candidate better represents change and which candidate can get the country headed in the right direction.
“In July, there was a stiff breeze heading directly at President Biden and obscuring a clear path to victory. Today, the winds have turned in Kamala Harris’ favor,” said Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
Still, Trump holds important advantages on the economy and inflation, although those leads are smaller than they were when Biden was still in the contest. Two-thirds of voters say their family income is falling behind the cost of living, and voters ranked the cost of living as their top concern in the election.
What’s more, the poll shows that some of Trump’s erosion has come from Republicans who aren’t die-hard supporters of the former president — but who could come back home to him, like they did in 2016 and 2020.
“We have seen this movie before,” said McInturff. “They can get squishy on Trump, and then in the end they come back and they vote the way they’re going to vote on a Republican-versus-Democrat preference for Congress.”
Overall, the 2024 presidential race looks a lot like it did four years ago, both pollsters agree, with the Democratic nominee more popular than the Republican candidate, the electorate still deeply polarized, and the final result unclear.
“All of this movement to Harris essentially returns the race to where it was in 2020 at the end of the campaign: a very close election,” Horwitt said.
This brand-new NBC News poll, conducted Sept. 13-17, comes after a momentous two months in American politics, including Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race on July 21, two party conventions, two vice-presidential selections, an assassination attempt on Trump in July and another apparent attempt two months later, and the first (and perhaps only) debate between Trump and Harris.
