Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t see a big bounce in polling after the Democratic National Convention, but instead has continued her presidential campaign’s momentum with steady, sustained gains that have put more states in play. A huge surge in Democratic enthusiasm for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is helping to drive that momentum.
Harris surged ahead of Republican nominee Donald Trump in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll of likely voters released Thursday, gaining a 5-percentage-point lead nationally (48% to 43%). That flips the script from late June, when Trump led President Joe Biden by 4 points. Her biggest gains come from the coalition of voters the campaign needs in order to win.
"With the 'Brat Summer' of Kamala Harris emojis winding down, young people, persons of color, and low-income households have swung dramatically toward the vice president," David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told USA Today. "These same demographics were emphasized and woven together by numerous speakers at the convention."
When he says “dramatically,” that’s no exaggeration. In June, Trump led Biden by 3 points among low-income voters. Harris now has a 23-point lead over Trump among that demographic. And that’s not all.
- Voters 18 to 34 years old moved from supporting Trump by 11 points to supporting Harris by 13 points, 49%-36%.
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Hispanics, a group the Republican campaign has been cultivating, moved from supporting Trump by 2 points to supporting Harris by 16 points, 53%-37%.
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Black voters, traditionally one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic groups, moved from supporting Biden by 47 points to supporting Harris by 64 points, 76%-12%.
That’s helping Harris to close the gap with Trump in the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. The Fox News poll of those states that has Trump so enraged shows Harris and Trump in a dead heat. Echoing the USA Today/Suffolk poll, the Fox News poll found that “more voters see Harris as the one who can unite the country — and who will ‘fight for people like you.’”
Trump’s own pollster, Tony Fabrizio, found a virtual dead heat in the Rust Belt states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, with Harris leading in Wisconsin by 4 points. Another battleground poll released Thursday by Emerson College confirms the close race in those states, and also shows Georgia and North Carolina in play for Harris.
The Democratic nominee’s favorability continues to climb in 538’s polling aggregate. Harris is still underwater (as most politicians are) but by less than 2 points—and the divide keeps shrinking. Trump, on the other hand, is nearly 10 points underwater.
The best news for Harris is Democratic enthusiasm going through the roof. Gallup found a 23-point surge in Democrats who are “more enthusiastic than usual” about voting, putting Republicans to shame. Here’s what that looks like in graph form:
One of the people surveyed by USA Today—an independent who leans Democratic—put that enthusiasm into words.
"I think people are cautiously optimistic that they're going to have a lot better chance with Harris than they would have had with Biden going head-to-head with Trump," said Amy Hendrix, 46, of Fort Worth, Texas. "I'm very excited to vote for a woman, and that's just the truth."
With 68 days left, Harris is exactly where she needs to be. The key now is to keep that momentum going.
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