As Kamala Harris named Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as her running mate, recent polls showed the vice-president moving ahead of Donald Trump in the race for the White House.
Among recent national head-to-head polls, SurveyUSA put Harris up three points ahead of Trump, 48%-45%; Morning Consult put her up four points, 48%-44%; YouGov and CBS News made it a one-point Harris lead, 50%-49%; and University of Massachusetts Amherst put Harris up three, 46%-43%.
Those results were mostly within the margin of error.
But Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of its poll, pointed to a key finding: a seven-point swing to the Democrat since January, when Trump led Joe Biden by four.
“For weeks after the first presidential debate in June,” Nteta said, “Democratic donors, prominent Democratic elected officials and members of the news media made the case that President Joe Biden faced long odds to defeat former President Donald Trump and called for Biden to step down.
“In the aftermath of Biden’s historic decision to forgo his re-election campaign, it seems as if Biden’s critics were indeed correct as his replacement, Vice-President Kamala Harris, has emerged as the frontrunner in the race for the White House.
“While there are still three months to go, the Harris campaign and the Democratic party must like their chances to maintain control of the White House and to send former President Trump to his second consecutive defeat in his quest to return to Pennsylvania Avenue.”
There was also good news for Harris from the Hill, as the site’s “ultimate hub for polls, predictions and election results” showed the Democrat with a positive favourability rating for the first time, after a steep climb since mid-July, when Biden stepped down.
As to be expected, August polls in the seven battleground states where the election is expected to be decided presented a more mixed picture.
In polls concluding in August, Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, found Harris up one in Georgia but down two on Trump in Arizona and down one in Pennsylvania. Trafalgar/Insider Advantage, a right-leaning operation, put Trump up two in Georgia.
According to battleground averages maintained by the polling site FiveThirtyEight, Trump led Harris by two points in Arizona and one in Georgia, with Harris up by two points Michigan, one in Pennsylvania and one and a half in Wisconsin.
North Carolina polls collected by FiveThirtyEight but not averaged showed Trump up but with a shrinking lead, down from nine points in mid-July to two points in early August.
There was also good news for Harris in a solidly Democratic state, New York, where Trump showed signs of progress while Biden led the blue ticket. With Harris in place, Siena College found her up 14 points, 53%-39%.
On Monday, Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight and an influential voice among polling analysts, said Harris “now has a real lead in national polls – about two points – and has also been ahead in most recent polls of” Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Concerns about economic conditions should not be counted out, Silver said, on a day of Wall Street sell-offs and reports of recession fears. “But the momentum in the polls outweighs it for now.”
This article was amended on 6 August 2024 to clarify the FiveThirtyEight poll findings in Georgia.
