Harris Challenges Trump, Building Momentum for Change

A new national poll from NBC News has reshaped the 2024 presidential race, with Vice President Kamala Harris outpacing her by double-digit gains in popularity, a surge in Democratic enthusiasm and an early lead as someone who represents “change.”

With just over six weeks until Election Day, polls show Harris leading the former president by five points. Among registered voters, Donald Trump trails by 49% to 44%, within the margin of error but a far cry from a July poll that showed Trump ahead by two points before President Joe Biden left office.

But the changes in the presidential race extend far beyond the horse race. For one thing, Harris’s favorability rating has jumped 16 points since July, the biggest jump for any politician in an NBC News poll since the president was president. George W. Bush’s approval ratings soared. later 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Harris also has an advantage over Trump. are considered competent and effective Having the mental and physical health to be president is the opposite of what Trump said he had when he was nominated. Biden.

In a race between a sitting vice president and a former president, with a majority of voters believing the country is “on the wrong track,” Harris is well-positioned to decide which candidate better represents change and can steer the country in the right direction.

“In July, there was a strong wind blowing straight for President Biden, obscuring a clear path to victory. Today, the wind has shifted in favor of Kamala Harris,” said Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, a Democratic pollster that conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

Still, Trump has a significant advantage on the economy and inflation, but those leads are smaller than when Biden was still in the race. Two-thirds of voters said their family incomes were falling behind the cost of living, and voters cited cost of living as their biggest concern in the election.

Moreover, polls suggest that some of Trump’s erosion has come from Republicans who aren’t the former president’s biggest supporters but who might return to him as they did in 2016 and 2020.

“We’ve seen this movie before,” McInturff said. “They can do something crazy about Trump, and then they’ll come back and vote in a way that favors Republicans over Democrats in Congress.”

overhead, Both polling organizations agree that the 2024 election will not be much different from the one four years ago, with the Democratic candidate more popular than the Republican, voters still deeply polarized, and the final outcome uncertain.

“This whole move against Harris essentially puts the race back where it was at the end of the 2020 campaign, which was a very close race,” Horwitt said.

This new NBC News poll, conducted Sept. 13-17, comes after two pivotal months in American politics that included Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race on July 21, two party conventions, two vice presidential elections, an assassination attempt on Trump in July, another attempt two months later, and (possibly) the first assassination attempt on Trump. The debate between Trump and Harris.

The first NBC News poll since the event found Harris with 49 percent of registered voters in a direct matchup. Trump got 44%. The remaining 7% said they would choose another candidate, were unsure, or would not vote.

In an expanded poll that included third-party candidates, Harris leads Trump by 6 points, 47% to 41%, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 2%, Jill Stein at 2% and Libertarian Chase Oliver at 1%. (Respondents were actually only able to choose from the major third-party candidates.) (Appears on each state’s ballot.)

Both race testing methods indicate that: That’s a change from July, when Trump was two points ahead of Biden in one-on-one vote tests and three points ahead in expanded vote tests. Here are the September results: The Democratic candidate has his best showing in the polls since the summer of 2023.

In a current one-on-one matchup, Harris holds the advantage among black voters (85%-7%), voters ages 18-34 (57%-34%), women (58%-37%), white voters with a college degree (59%-38%), and independents (43%-35%).

All of these advantages are larger for Harris than they were when Biden was still in the race, although among independents, Harris’s 8-point lead is nearly identical to Biden’s lead in July.

Meanwhile, Trump leads among men (52%-40%), white voters (52%-43%) and white voters without a college degree (61%-33%).

Seventy-one percent of all voters said they had already made up their minds, while 11 percent said they might change their vote, compared to 26 percent in April who said they might still change their mind.

An NBC News poll tested Harris and Trump on 13 issues and presidential qualities.

Harris’s best performances were in protecting immigrant rights (28 points ahead of Trump), abortion (+21 points), the mental and physical health needed for a president (+20 points), the temperament needed for a president (+16 points), and representing change (+9 points).

By comparison, the areas where Trump is most ahead are border security (+21), the economy (+9), and cost of living issues (+8).

But Trump’s current advantage is smaller than it was when Biden was still in the race. When NBC News asked voters about Trump and Biden in January, Trump led the president by 35 points on border security and immigration control, and by 22 points on the economy.

In April, voters gave Trump a 22 percentage point advantage over Biden on inflation and the cost of living.

Beyond these issues and qualifications, what stands out in the polls is Harris’s growing popularity since she became the Democratic nominee.

In July, 32% of registered voters had a positive view of Harris, while 50% had a negative view of her (-18 net rating), which was almost identical to Biden’s rating.

But in this new poll, Harris now has 48% approval and 45% disapproval (+3).

In the 35-year history of NBC News polling, no major party presidential candidate has ever enjoyed such a surge in popularity in an election.

And the only other candidates with bigger gains than Harris in the NBC News poll were George W. Bush’s surge after 9/11 (up nearly 30 points in positivity), then-President George H.W. Bush’s surge after Gulf War I (up 24 points in positivity), and independent candidate Ross Perot’s 23-point gain in his 1992 re-election.

Meanwhile, a new poll shows Trump’s net approval rating is little changed since July: 40% positive, 53% negative (-13).

Despite Harris’s improvement, the polls contain warning signs for Democrats. For one, inflation and the cost of living remain the top issues for voters, and 66% of voters say their family income is falling behind the cost of living.

Moreover, while Harris leads Trump on “change,” a separate question revealed potential vulnerabilities if she were linked to a Biden presidency: 40% of voters said they were more concerned that Harris would continue Biden’s approach.

That compares with 39% who said they were concerned Trump would continue the same approach he took in his first term, while 18% said neither was a concern.

Meanwhile, 65% of voters said the country was on the wrong track, while just 28% said it was on the right track. While the percentage on the wrong track is lower than it was during most of the Biden-Harris administration, the grim outlook is very similar to what voters saw when they decided to switch parties in the White House in 2016 and 2020.

And while the percentage of Democrats who say they are highly interested in the election (scoring a “9” or “10” on a 10 scale) has increased since July, interest among young voters remains lower than in recent presidential elections.

Regarding the recent debate between Harris and Trump, 29% of respondents said they supported Harris after the September 10 showdown, 12% said they supported Trump, and 57% said there was no difference.

In the fight for control of Congress, 48% of registered voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, while 46% want a Republican-controlled Congress. (That’s essentially the same as July’s 47% Democrats and 46% Republicans.)

And a whopping 57% of voters have a negative view of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint linked to former Trump administration officials that Democrats touted during the campaign, while just 4% have a positive view.

The NBC News national poll was conducted Sept. 13-17 among 1,000 registered voters, 870 of whom responded via cell phone. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percent.