Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? Latest poll updates from the 2024 election

Vice President Kamala Harris is making a bid for the White House with running mate Tim Walz after replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket in July.

With just over two months until Election Day, campaigning is in full swing for both parties, as Harris and Biden stop in Pennsylvania today for Labor Day. So how will Harris actually fare against former president Donald Trump in November?

While independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr suspended his presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump, there has been no clear ripple effect as of yet, with neither candidate receiving a substantial boost in support.

Nor did the Democratic National Convention make a mark on overall polling numbers, with Harris maintaining a steady average lead of 3+ points over Trump — but men and women grow more divided over presidential support.

Harris has a 3.2-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, though the race remains tight with variation in swing states.

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that the American public thinks that Harris is doing a better job on her campaign overall, while Trump is in the red.

The poll, undertaken up to 27 August, also shows that a third of Trump supporters (31 per cent)have reservations about their choice.

This is nearly double the amount of people who support Harris with reservations (18 per cent).

Harris appears to have improved conviction among Democrat supporters, as the same poll in July found that 34 per cent of Biden supporters had reservations about his candidacy.

In July, just 34 per cent of Biden voters strongly supported his candidacy, compared to 60 per cent who now strongly support Harris.

However, 1 in 5 Harris voters are acting mainly out of dislike for other candidates; while just 9 per cent of Trump supporters feel the same.

While the DNC from August 19 to 22 made little dent in the overall Harris-Trump split, the gender divide between the two candidates’ support continued to grow.

The number of women supporting Harris increased by +3 points from pre-convention numbers, to 54 per cent, while just 41 per cent of women surveyed support Trump.

However, Trump also received a boost of +5 points among men in this period; with 51 per cent of men supporting the Republican candidate.

The poll also shows that Kennedy’s exit makes no difference to the vast majority (79 per cent) of voters, and there has been no impact on Trump-Harris numbers.

It may take some time for the changes to reflect in the polls. This analysis from The Independent shows how RFK Jr. has higher support in states like New Mexico, and could free up some of the younger vote.

Demographics 

A CBS/YouGov poll (up to August 16) has shows that Trump’s key supporters remain male voters, the 45-64 age group, and white voters with no college education.

But in the last group, Trump appears to have lost some of his leverage over Harris when compared to Biden.

Harris polls best with young voters, female voters, and Black voters, among whom Harris has a +65 point lead.

While Harris and Biden both typically led among white college-educated voters, the recent CBS poll suggests that Harris has only a +5 point lead over Trump in this group — a far cry from the 20+ point lead she showed in other polls a few weeks ago.

Independents

A Morning Consult megapoll of 11,501 registered voters shows that independent voters are also leaning more towards Harris, though there has been significant variation between different surveys of the elusive voter group.

Capturing the independent vote will be crucial for either Harris or Trump to take the lead in this election. This was the most likely group to vote for Kennedy, with 1 in 10 independents saying they will vote for a third-party candidate.

Meanwhile, exclusive polling from Savanta showed that voters still trust the Republican Party more to handle major policy issues like the economy, inflation, jobs, and crime.

Fighting in the battlegrounds

In the seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the war is still being waged between Democrat and Republican campaigns.

Research from the Cook Political Report show that Harris has a lead in six out of seven states, with Trump holding strong in Nevada.

The poll shows Harris’s strongest lead in Arizona, where Biden won by just 0.4 percent in 2020.

This is a substantial swing from the same polls in May, with a Trump-Biden matchup, where Trump led in six states and tied in Wisconsin.

Yet polling in swing states continues to show variation from pollster to pollster, with a YouGov/CBS poll conducted up to the same date (August 2) suggesting that neither candidate had a significant lead in any of the battlegrounds.

Overall, battleground polls have consistently shown that Harris has picked up momentum from her predecessor’s trailing support, and is on-track to lead Trump in some states

What do voters think?

A poll from Emerson College (August 12-14) shows that Kamala Harris is the only candidate of whom voters have an overall favorable opinion, at +2 percent.

This is significantly more positive than both Trump and his running mate Vance, who have a net -10 unfavorable rating, according to the poll of 1,000 US likely voters.

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Meanwhile, VP pick Walz has an overall neutral favorability rating, with 39 percent of voters holding a favorable view and 39 percent holding an unfavorable view.

Interestingly, one in five voters (22 percent) said they had never heard of Walz, one week after he was selected. For JD Vance the number was lower, at 12 percent.

When asked how much they approve of how incumbent Joe Biden is doing as president, voters showed net disapproval of -14 percent.