Kamala Harris Jumps to Narrow National Lead Over Trump: NPR

According to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, Vice President Harris has turned the presidential race around and now holds a 51%-48% lead over former President Trump.

That result is 4 points better than the one she received immediately after Harris entered the race two weeks ago, when President Biden dropped out. Harris maintains a 3-point lead (48%-45%) even when third-party picks are offered.

Fueling her rise are black voters, white women with college degrees, and women who identify as political independents. She’s picking up 20 to 30 points among them than when she entered, which translates into gains in the suburbs and among white voters overall.

On the issues side, negative views on the economy aren’t appealing to Harris the way they did to Biden. Trump is still more trustworthy on the economy, but only by 3 points over Harris (51%-48%), compared to 9 points over Biden (54%-45%) in June.

Harris is also seeing improvement in how she would handle immigration, although Trump is still more reliable on this issue by 6 points (52%-46%). Harris’s best issue is her handling of abortion rights. She has a 15-point lead on this.

The poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday, before Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Marist polled 1,613 adults via cell phones, landlines, and online research panels in English and Spanish. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points, meaning the results could be more or less than 3 percentage points off.

Women, black voters and independents all rallied behind Harris

Thanks to Harris’s successes with certain groups, her standing has also improved in the suburbs and among white voters overall.

But now there is a 22-point gender gapwhich is wider than the margin between Trump and Biden in July. Harris now leads by 13 points with women (55%-42%), but is trailing by 9 points with men (54%-45%). Considering the margin of error, these are close to the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to exit polls.

Harris’s biggest boost comes from black voters. She went from a 23-point lead among black voters over Trump a couple of weeks ago, when many voters moved into the undecided camp, to a 54-point lead now. Harris is getting close to the territory where Democrats need to be with black voters.

Some black voters, who had seemed to be considering Trump, have turned away from him as he lost 10 points to them.

Harris is now also winning independent seats, which Biden wasn’t doing. Harris leads independents by 9 points (53%-44%). She trailed them by 14 points last month. And in early July, Trump was beating Biden by nearly 20 points with the group. That’s a huge turnaround.

Harris also saw gains among white voters overall. Harris went from 40% with white voters overall to 46% in this poll, which is closer to where Biden was, and very high for a Democrat. In fact, no Democrat has scored that high with white voters in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Biden won 41% in 2020; Barack Obama won 43% in 2008.

This improvement was mainly due to white women with a college education. White voters without college degrees, a key Trump base group, are overwhelmingly behind Trump, and their margin is unchanged. Two-thirds of college-educated white women, however, are now in Harris’s camp, which would be far higher than the percentage who sided with Biden in 2020.

He is also gaining support among older voters. For example, Harris leads Trump by 11 points among Baby Boomers (55%-44%).

Latinos also rallied behind Harris. Fifty-eight percent say they would vote for her now, up from 51 percent last month. That’s still below the 65 percent Biden got in 2020.

Right now Harris is not where she should be with voters under 45. Biden won them in 2020 by 14 points. Harris and Trump are currently tied with the pack. However, where Harris does much better than Biden with the pack is in holding them when third parties are introduced.

Biden, for example, was seeing double-digit declines among Gen Z/Millennials. Harris, on the other hand, maintained and slightly widened her lead when respondents had a choice of candidates other than the two major party choices.

Harris is benefiting from a surge in enthusiasm among key Democratic voter groups

Black, Latino and younger voters say they are even more enthusiastic about voting now that Harris is in the race.

Black, Latino, and Gen Z/Millennial voters all said they would definitely vote in double-digit increases.

In July, just 71% of Black voters, 68% of Latino voters, and 65% of Gen Z/Millennials said they would vote, among the lowest percentages of any group.

But that percentage has now risen to 81 percent among black voters, 84 percent among Latinos, and 80 percent among Gen Z/Millennials, closer to parity with white voters than in previous polls.

Third parties register lowest scores in elections

With Harris in the race, it seems like people are moving away from third parties.

All of the third-party candidates are polling at their worst since Marist began asking about them in April. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent, is down to just 5 percent. Professor Cornel West, who is also running as an independent, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Libertarian Chase Oliver are all polling at or below 1 percent.

Kennedy continues to do best among those who have an unfavorable opinion of both Trump and Harris, winning about a third of those voters.

People are divided on who they think will win, but many more say Harris will win than Biden

Last month, respondents were 20 points more likely to say Trump would beat Biden (59%-39%). Now, they’re split (48%-48%).

In particular, independents went from 58% thinking Trump would win to 52% thinking Harris will win.

People are also more satisfied with their choicesthough only 47% say they are, compared to 50% who say they are not. In June, there was a 10-point difference between people who were satisfied (42%) and those who were dissatisfied with their choices (52%).

Being honest and trustworthy is the most important quality for a president

While trustworthiness was the most important quality for Democrats and independent voters, most Republicans said a “strong leader” was more important to them.

All signs continue to point to a close election, not only for the presidency but also for Congress.

Forty-seven percent said they wanted to see Democrats in control of Congress, while 45 percent said Republicans. That 2-point advantage is unchanged from June.

Democrats traditionally need a larger lead on that score to make significant gains: In 2022, when they prevented Republicans from winning a wave of House seats, they had a 4-point lead in the Marist poll; in 2020, it was 8, but Democrats lost House seats; they were +6 in 2018 and made significant gains, however; in 2014, when Republicans won seats, Republicans were +5 on the question.

Congressional ballots and seat changes are not always clearly correlated because of where the most competitive seats are located in that cycle. In this cycle, for example, many are in suburban areas of New York, California, and around Philadelphia, where Democrats have advantages in presidential years because of higher turnout among their core constituencies.

Biden’s approval is on the rise

Now that Biden has dropped out of the race, his approval ratings are picking up.

His approval rating is now at 46%, the highest level since February 2023 and up 5 points from last month.