What the Polls Say About Trump vs. Kamala Harris

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty

After Joe Biden’s shocker of an announcement that he’s withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris as his successor, there will soon be plenty of fresh polling on the new likely matchup against Donald Trump. But according to recent polls, she begins with about the same level of popularity as Biden, not taking into account the surge she is likely to get from the cascade of endorsements from Democratic leaders she has been receiving. As I noted in an earlier Poll Position item on July 9, Harris’s job-approval rating has recently converged with Biden’s; as of July 18, hers was at 38.6 percent in the FiveThirtyEight averages compared to Biden’s 38.5, while her disapproval number (50.4 percent) was a notably lower than Biden’s (56.2 percent). Similarly, her favorability ratio at RealClearPolitics (38.2–52.3 percent) is slightly better than Biden’s 39.1–56.6 percent).

In head-to-head trial heats against Trump, Harris has also been running at or slightly above Biden in most national surveys. RealClearPolitics shows Trump with a 1.7 percent margin (47.6–45.9 percent) over Harris, as compared to the 3.0 margin (47.7–44.7 percent) over Biden he held before the president dropped out. There really isn’t enough polling of Harris in a race that include non-major-party candidates to indicate how she’s doing in that context.

The most recent polls with data harvested after Biden’s withdrawal generally show Harris doing relatively well, such as this new release from the Morning Consult Tracking poll on July 22:

A July 22-23 Reuters-Ipsos poll shows Harris leading Trump by two points (44 - 42 percent). A one-day July 22 Marist/NPR survey gave Trump a one-point lead (46 - 45 percent). And a Yahoo/YouGov poll with data from both before and after Biden’s withdrawal shows a Harris-Trump tie at 46 percent.

CNN/SSRS released a July 22-23 national poll with Trump leading Harris by three points (49 - 46 percent), but noted this represented an improvement over the six-point deficit its June 30 survey showed for Biden.

Battleground state surveys of Harris versus Trump have been sporadic and mixed. InsiderAdvantage, a GOP-leaning poll outlet that had a shaky reputation in 2022, showed Harris trailing Trump (and Biden’s standing against Trump) substantially in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania on July 16. Similarly the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a July 18 poll showed Harris trailing Trump by five points in Georgia, a bit more than Biden’s deficit. But a post-Biden-withdrawal survey of Georgia from Landmark Communications showed Trump with just a one-point lead among likely voters. And New York Times–Siena showed Harris running ahead of Biden in Pennsylvania and Virginia while leading Trump by five points in the latter and trailing him by one point in the former.

There’s little or no horse-race polling pitting Harris directly against other potential Democratic nominees, but a very recent AP-NORC survey showed her being considered more likely to be a “good president” by Democrats than either Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer or California governor Gavin Newsom. And a July 22 CBS News/YouGov survey suggests Democrats are consolidating support behind Harris and are happy about it. It shows 83 percent of registered Democrats approving of Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race, and 79 percent supporting Harris as the replacement nominee. 39 percent of registered Democrats say this development makes them more motivated to vote, with only six percent saying they are less motivated to vote.

Democratic elected officials and delegates previously pledged to Biden appear to agree, and Harris has all but wrapped up the nomination. She may well get a polling surge as voters are reintroduced to her as a younger, more vibrant candidate. But Trump may still get a bit of a “bounce” from his survival of an assassination attempt followed by a show of Republican unity in Milwaukee. A new Quinnipiac survey shows Trump’s favorable/unfavorable ratio at 46 - 49 percent, the best for him since 2015.