Harris vs. Trump latest presidential polls: Who is winning as race tightens?
The race for the White House is growing increasingly tight as Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is moving closer to former President Donald Trump in the polls.
Just weeks after President Joe Biden exited the race and ahead of the Democratic National Convention later this month, polling averages tracked by The Hill show Harris was the choice of 46.5% of voters compared to Trump’s 47.6%. On July 21, the day Biden announced he was stepping away from the race, Harris polled at 45.7% compared to Trump’s 48%.
The figures reflect the average of 95% of all national polls tracked, according to The Hill.
Race is tightening
Even polls showing Trump maintaining a healthy lead show a tightening race.
Rasmussen’s poll conducted July 24-25 and 28-31 of 2,163 likely voters shows the Republican nominee was the choice of 49% of likely U.S. voters compared to 44% who said they would vote for Harris. Four percent said they’d vote for some other candidate and 2% were undecided. A week ago, Trump led by 7 points over Harris in the same poll.
The poll has a margin of error of plus/minus 2 percentage points.
Another recent poll, this one by BigDataPoll, shows Trump up by 1.2 percentage points, 46.7% to 45.5% with 7.8% undecided. The poll was conducted July 28-30 among 3,097 registered voters with a margin of error of plus/minus 1.8 percentage points.
Early numbers correct?
Experts caution against reading too much into the early numbers.
“The race for the White House has clearly tightened from what was becoming a runaway landslide, but it’s important to consider the current political environment,” Big Data Poll Director Rich Baris said in a statement. “This month, Democrats were much more likely to participate in interviews than they have been in recent months and increased enthusiasm also manifested in a higher self-reported likelihood to vote.”
“The same was true of Republicans following the attempted assassination of the former president last month,” he added.
On the ability to handle individual issues, Trump received the highest scores for immigration and border security, abortion rights and restrictions and economy and jobs. Harris trailed Trump in most individual issues but received her highest scores for labor and union issues (41.9%) and threats to democracy and corruption $42.8%.)