With just over two months left until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a slight lead over former President Trump in national polls and has made advances in several swing states that previously seemed locked up for Trump.
Poll after poll shows the race essentially tied, with leads for either Trump or Harris often within the margin of error.
Harris would take 45% of the nationwide vote, compared with Trump’s 41%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters, released Thursday. Her margin widened to 13 percentage points over Trump among women and Hispanic voters, the survey found.
Harris leads Trump 48% to 47% in a head-to-head matchup, according to a Thursday poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal, which noted the vice president holds a 2-point lead when independent and third-party candidates are factored into the survey.
And in a USA Today/Suffolk University survey, also released Thursday, Harris holds a 48%-to-43% lead over Trump.
The spate of new polls, released after the pro-Harris blitz at the Democratic National Convention wrapped up, reflects a dramatic shift in the state of the race since President Biden dropped out just over a month ago.
The Trump campaign anticipated the post-DNC bump of support for Harris, saying in a statement before her acceptance speech Aug. 22, “These bumps do not last.” The campaign noted that it had also predicted a “honeymoon” period of positive polling and good press after Harris’ nomination, adding that it blamed the media, which it said had “decided to extend the honeymoon for over 4 weeks now.”
Narrow margins in swing states
Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have been zeroing in on the swing states likely to determine the election. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, campaigned in Georgia and North Carolina this week and announced a “reproductive freedom bus tour” across several battleground states, beginning next week. Meanwhile, Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, visited Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump led Harris 45% to 43% among registered voters across the seven battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. But a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll showed Harris either leading or tied with Trump in the same states.
A Fox News poll conducted over the weekend showed Harris leading by 1 percentage point in Arizona, and by 2 points in Georgia and Nevada. Trump was up 1 point in North Carolina, according to the Fox News poll.
The Fox News polling finds Harris keeping pace with the support that won President Biden the election in 2020; he eked out leads in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada while Trump won North Carolina. In the 2024 campaign, Trump previously held a commanding lead in the four Sun Belt states before Biden dropped out, according to Fox News polls conducted earlier this year.
Harris maintained a 1-point lead across the four states even when third-party candidates such as Chase Oliver,