President Biden has dropped out of the 2024 race and Support for Vice President Harris to take office in November, which raises the question of what the polls tell us about their chances against former President Trump.
Although Harris still needs to win enough delegates to be officially nominated before next month’s convention, she is now the designated successor – a relief for many Democrats who have been concerned about Biden’s dismal poll numbers in recent weeks.
But the vice president would face her own challenges if she ran against Trump, the latest poll averages by Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) and The Hill.
Trump, who officially accepted the Republican nomination at the Republican National Convention last week, is two percentage points ahead of Harris with 47 percent approval to 45 percent, according to the total of national polls. That’s about the same as Trump’s lead is 2.5 points about Biden with 46 percent support compared to 43.5 percent for the incumbent.
If independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also remains in the race, Trump will have a lead of six percentage points over Harris (43 percent support to 37 percent), while Kennedy will be at six percent.
The popularity of the Vice President is 38 percent, slightly lower than Biden’s 41 percent.
“Her popularity nationally is similar to Biden’s — it’s not great,” said Scott Tranter, director of data science at DDHQ, a week before news of Biden’s departure broke. “But her advantage is that she doesn’t carry all the baggage that Biden carries, and voters will look at her differently.”
Trump’s lead over Harris is on average two points, which is significantly lower than at the beginning of the year, when it was around eight points. Other recent polls also give her supporters cause for hope.
In a Economist/YouGov survey According to a mid-July poll, about eight in 10 Democrats said they were OK with Harris being the nominee if Biden steps down, and just over a quarter said they would be more likely to win against Trump than Biden.
A poll by CBS News A poll released last week found Harris outperforming Trump over Biden, with Harris trailing by 3 points and Biden trailing by 5 points.
A CNN poll The results of the first presidential debate, released after Biden’s disappointing performance, renewed speculation that he should be dropped from the ballot. Harris was closer to Trump than to Biden, trailing the former president by just two points, while Biden was six points behind.
The Democratic polling institute Bendixen & Amandi Inc. sees the vice president one point ahead of Trump in a Opinion poll Released earlier this month.
Harris is also “the easiest” among the prominent Democrats who come into play as a hypothetical candidate to take Biden’s place, since the mechanics of the process, Tranter said.
Strategists point out that she is best placed to take over Biden’s campaign apparatus and the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) donation system without too much legal entanglement. Moreover, her agenda is already clearly aligned with Biden’s.
The vice president is also 59 years elderly, more than 20 years younger than Biden, and a black woman – qualities that could appeal to key segments of the Democratic base.
“Having a young black woman on the ballot instead of Joe Biden really eliminates a lot of the arguments that Republicans have against [Biden],” said Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins. “She has the ability to run on all of her positive accomplishments without making health the focus.”
At the same time, hypothetical Trump-Harris polls in individual states indicate a tough fight. Biden was behind Trump in several key battlegrounds before he dropped out of the race, and the latest numbers suggest that Harris will have a similarly steep uphill climb.
Trump has a lead of about 9 points in Nevada7 points in Arizona and 6 points in Georgiaaccording to DDHQ averages.
Trump is 4 points ahead in Pennsylvania1 point in Wisconsin and less than half a point in Michigan — while Harris has a 3-point lead in Virginia.
Overall, however, there is still not much polling data to support a potential Harris-Trump contest – either at the national or state level – and these averages are based on no more than six polls in each state.
Given the historic turnaround in the race, the DDHQ forecast models will be shut down for a few weeks to collect more data, the team said.
The speculation has brought Harris novel media and voter attention, and suggests that attention would enhance even more if she were to actually replace Biden as the party’s nominee. It remains unclear how the increased media attention might affect her poll numbers.
Attention was already focused on the question who could support Harris as running mate? — and during Trump’s vice presidential election It was not expected to have much influence on votersthe decision to run for Harris could potentially have greater implications.
Tranter argued that the spotlight offered Harris “an opportunity to refocus.”
“I don’t expect the polls to show her beating Trump outright, but she will have a full campaign and a fresh start ahead of her and no questions about whether she is mentally fit to hold the post,” he said of the possibility of her becoming the nominee.
Harris must now secure the support of the more than 3,800 Biden won delegates throughout the primary process as the party heads toward the Democratic convention scheduled for August in Chicago. Although most Democratic delegates have pledged to vote for Biden, You are not obliged to in the unprecedented case of his resignation.
