Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? Latest poll updates

Here’s what the latest polls say about the 2024 presidential election, from The Independent’s data correspondent

In less than 41 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will go head-to-head with Donald Trump as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.

Amid substantial variation in the national polls, YouGov/The Economist data shows that Harris has a wide lead among young people. However, one in six people still have not committed to voting in November.

Separate exclusive polling shows that half of voters think Harris will offer largely the same policies as Biden, which could hurt her campaign when it comes to immigration and inflation.

The candidates are preparing for an intense final stretch of the campaign, with the needle ready to swing either way. So how will Harris and Trump fare in November?

Harris has a 2.6-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls.

There has been substantial variation in polls from this week, with an Ipsos/Reuters poll showing a seven-point lead, while Quinnipiac University has the two candidates head to head.

A YouGov/Economist poll has Harris with a three-point lead among registered voters, at 47 per cent and Trump at 44 per cent. The poll shows a wide 25-point margin for Harris among young voters, aged 29 and under.

However, according to the same poll, the younger generations are also the least committed to voting, with 13 per cent of the 18-29-year-olds surveyed saying they will “maybe” vote, while 3 per cent will not vote or are still unsure.

This amounts to 16 per cent who are on the fence or not voting, higher than any other age group, and higher than the average of 9 per cent. Just 65 per cent of the 18 to 29-year-olds polled said they would definitely vote in November.

This is in comparison to 77 per cent of 30 to 44-year-olds, 85 per cent of 45 to 64-year-olds, and 94 per cent of the 65+ age group.

Though the numbers may seem dismal, and do represent a degree of hesitancy among younger voters, the overall picture is significantly more engaged than in 2020.

The same YouGov/Economist poll at this stage in the 2020 presidential election showed that nearly a third of young people (27 per cent) were not committed to voting in November, with 10 per cent “maybe” voting and 17 per cent “definitely/probably” not voting.

Meanwhile, a separate Savanta poll shows that the Harris campaign has seen limited success in distancing itself from the current Biden administration, The Independent can exclusively reveal.

Some four in 10 voters see Harris as having a strong influence on US policy in her role as vice president. In particular, voters believe that the current administration’s policies on immigration and inflation could negatively harm Harris’s reputation by association.

Read here for the full analysis.

Independents

One nationwide Morning Consult poll, of 11,000 likely voters nationwide from September 20-22, shows Harris with a five-point lead overall.

The tracker poll has Harris leading among the elusive independent voters, by +4 points overall; at 46 per cent, to Trump’s 42 per cent.

However, this margin is unchanged from the same poll in mid-August, when Harris had 42 per cent of the independent vote and Trump had 38 per cent (a 4-point lead).

What has changed is that the number of independent voters who are undecided, or voting for a third candidate, has dropped from one in five (20 per cent) to one in 10 (12 per cent).

It is important to note that this is 12 per cent of independents who are likely to vote. Meaning that once they make their choice, this is likely to swing the odds in either candidate’s favor.

Interestingly, 6 per cent of independents are still planning to vote for a third-party candidate, even now that Robert F Kennedy Jr has endorsed Trump.

With Cornel West, Jill Stein, and Chase Oliver still in play, it remains to be seen how many independent votes they will attract on election day.

North-South divide in swing states

Despite what appears to be a slight Harris lead, Trump is leading in three Sun Belt states, according to fresh polls from The New York Times.

Trump has a five-point lead over Harris in Arizona and a four-point lead in Georgia, with a more modest two-point lead in North Carolina.

This is a stark change from the same poll in August, when Harris led in both Arizona and North Carolina, within the margin error.

In Arizona, in particular, the two candidates have virtually flipped their support; Trump is at 50 per cent of the vote and Harris at 45 per cent, while the opposite was true last month.

It is worth noting that Harris is only two points behind Trump in North Carolina, at 47 per cent to 49 per cent. Trump has won the state in both previous elections.

Meanwhile, separate polling from Quinnipiac University in three Northern battleground states shows a promising lead for Harris — but there’s still room for Trump to turn things around.

In Pennsylvania, which hosted last week’s head-to-head debate, Harris leads by six points, with 51 per cent of the vote, compared to Trump’s 45 per cent.

Harris also enjoys a strong five-point lead in Michigan at 50 per cent, with Trump at 45 per cent.

Part of this could be attributed to Harris’s particularly strong support among Michigan women, which is higher than the national average.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, neither candidate has managed to carve out a real lead. Since Biden won the state by a hairline in 2020 — just 0.63 per cent — we could see a repeat situation in November.

Arizona: key issues

In Arizona — a historically Republican state that has 11 electoral college votes and flipped for Biden in 2020 — Trump’s five-point lead may be a concern for the Harris campaign.

Meanwhile, this is certainly good news for the Trump campaign, which has made frequent stops in the state over the summer.

So why the turn?

In a state that borders Mexico, some one in five (19 per cent) of Arizona voters say that immigration is the most important issue affecting their vote, according to the same poll.

This is second to the economy, which is the number one issue impacting voters statewide and nationwide.

The majority (51 per cent) of Arizona voters believe that Trump is better equipped to handle the top issues, which has flipped since August when Harris was slightly more trusted.

This indicates that, despite the overall enthusiasm for Harris’s debate performance, Arizona voters may favor Trump and his approach to key issues. As a generally Republican state, this is unsurprising.

Demographics

A separate poll from The New York Times and Siena College last week has Trump and Harris in a national deadlock, each at 47 per cent of the vote among likely voters.

This is a slight shift from the same poll in early September, which had Trump at +2 points ahead of Harris in a surprise result.

The new poll, taken after the debate and with 2,437 likely voters, had 67 per cent of respondents saying that Harris performed well in the debate, compared to 40 per cent who thought the same about Trump.

Harris retains a strong lead among women (12 points ahead), while Trump enjoys a 14-point lead among men.

In particular, Harris has improved her vote share among under-34s following the debate, with a 7 per cent increase to 58 per cent of the vote and a 21-point lead over Trump.

Meanwhile, her lead within the 30-44 age bracket has shrunk, with Trump just 4 points behind; though Trump’s margin in the 45-64 age bracket has also decreased to just 2 points.

Make sense of the US election with The Independent’s experts in our exclusive virtual event ‘Harris vs. Trump: who will make history?’ Reserve your space here.

Among white, college-educated voters, the early September poll showed a 12-point preference for Harris. Following the debate, this group has seen the most substantial jump, with a 25-point lead for Harris at 61 per cent of the vote.

Interestingly, a pre-debate poll from The New York Times showed that nearly a third of voters (28 per cent) felt they needed to learn more about Harris, compared to 9 per cent who would say the same about Trump.

But the debate was helpful for Harris in that regard, as half of voters (50 per cent) feel that they “learned a lot” about her during the debate, with just a third saying the same about Trump, according to The New York Times poll.

Favorability

The vice president has suffered overall negative favorability ratings since July 2021, which is not uncommon for those holding public office.

But on September 18, for the first time in over three years, Harris’s positive and negative favorability ratings were equal, according to the average of all favorability polls collated by FiveThirtyEight.

The debate may have been Harris’s chance to turn around her public perception, and ultimately foster a more favorable opinion of herself and her campaign.

The same cannot be said of Trump, whose net favorability is at a -9.9 negative rating, and has been negative since the last election. JD Vance also entered the race with a negative rating, which has only grown with time, now at -10.7 per cent on average.

Democratic running mate Tim Walz is the only candidate who entered the race with a positive rating and has kept it, with an average favorability rating of +3.9, according to FiveThirtyEight.

However, incumbent President Joe Biden has also suffered negative ratings since September 2021; and has the lowest favorability on average, at -14.6 per cent.

Trust in Trump or Harris?

Trust for Harris and Trump is split down the line on major issues.

An ABC News poll shows that Americans believe Trump will better handle the economy, inflation and immigration, while Harris is more trusted on healthcare, gun violence, and abortion, among other issues.

The economy remains the most important factor for many voters, with an Independent analysis showing that economic issues are pivotal for independent voters in many key states.

As we near the one-year mark of the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, Americans say they are more confident (+6 per cent) in Trump’s ability to handle the Israel-Hamas war; though only half of Americans view the war as important to their vote.

CNN’s snap poll following the first Trump-Harris debate shows that Harris managed to turn the tide with some voters. 

In the wake of the debate, more voters now believe Harris better understands the issues of people like them (44 per cent) compared to Trump (40 per cent). Before the debate, the opposite was true.