- Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump, 48% to 43%, in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll.
- The results reflect an eight-point turnaround in the presidential race since late June.
Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump, 48% to 43%, according to a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll.
The results reflect an eight-point turnaround in the presidential race since late June, when Trump led President Joe Biden in the poll by nearly four points.
The vice president’s slight lead is due to big shifts among some key demographic groups traditionally crucial to Democrats, including Hispanic and black voters and young people. Among people with annual incomes below $20,000, the biggest change is that Trump’s three-point lead over Biden in June has become Harris’ 23-point lead over Trump in August.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters, conducted by landline and cell phone from Sunday to Wednesday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. As the election approaches, the survey now measures likely voters; previous surveys have focused on registered voters.
Harris managed to do what Biden never could this year: lead Trump.
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Without the usual rounding of results, his lead would be closer to four points than five, or 47.6% against 43.3%.
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The success of “Brat Summer” and targeted appeals
The results underscore the success of targeted appeals at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week.
“As Kamala Harris’s summer of emojis draws to a close, young people, people of color and low-income households are turning out dramatically for the vice president,” said David Paleologos, director of the Center for Policy Research at Suffolk University. “These same demographics were highlighted and woven together by many speakers at the convention.”
Among the biggest changes since June, all outside the poll’s margin of error:
- Voters aged 18 to 34 went from 11 points of support for Trump to 13 points of support for Harris, 49% to 36%.
- Hispanics, a group the Republican campaign has cultivated, moved from supporting Trump by 2 points to supporting Harris by 16 points, 53%-37%.
- Black voters, traditionally one of the most Democratic groups, went from 47 points of support for Biden to 64 points of support for Harris, or 76% to 12%.
Low-income voters now support Harris 58% to 35%. She has stressed her commitment to creating an “opportunity economy” that would make housing more affordable and combat rising food prices, though she has not released detailed policy plans.
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“I am very happy to vote for a woman”
Voters across the spectrum say the election was transformative. Harris is the first woman of color and the first person of South Asian descent to be nominated for president by a major party. At 59, she is a generation younger than Trump, the former president, who is 78, and Biden, who is 81.
“I think people are cautiously optimistic that they’re going to have a much better chance with Harris than they would have with Biden and Trump,” said Amy Hendrix, 46, of Fort Worth. An independent who usually votes Democratic, she was among those asked to participate in the poll. “I’m very excited about voting for a woman, and that’s the truth.”
But Jason Streem, also 46, a suburban Cleveland dentist who supports Trump, objected to the way Harris became the nominee.
“She never participated in the selection process,” he said in a later interview. “She never received the primary votes.” He called it “the most undemocratic way to choose a candidate.”
Biden gave up his reelection bid just over a month ago, under pressure from party leaders and donors who feared he could not win. That opened the door to an unprecedentedly rapid swing to Harris for the nomination.
In the USA TODAY/Suffolk poll, Biden’s vote share this year has never exceeded 37.5%, and he trailed Trump by just half a percentage point last spring — essentially a tie — to nearly four points immediately after the Biden-Trump debate earlier this summer.
This is the first poll since independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump. Independent Cornel West is now at 2%. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver are both at 1%.
When voters supporting third-party candidates were asked their second choice, 32% said Harris, 24% West and 15% Trump.
