Former President Donald Trump looks to have made impressive gains over Vice President Kamala Harris, gaining roughly 14 points among independents and 19 points among Latino voters.
According to new polling from NPR/PBS News/Marist, Trump has surpassed Harris by three points among independents in a multi-candidate race, 49% to 46%. This represents a considerable increase since August, when Trump trailed Harris, 59, by 11 points, 48% to 37%.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had received 12% of the vote in the previous survey, withdrew from the contest and endorsed Trump in the interim between the August and September polls. Furthermore, Harris’s “honeymoon” following her sudden ascent to the nomination has started to level out.
In August, Trump led Harris by fifteen points, 54% to 39%, among Latino voters; by now, Trump leads by four points, with 51% of the vote to Harris’s 47%.
“When Trump and Harris square off in Philadelphia, the stakes are sky-high because the contest is so close,” Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, explained.
“Only single digits separate the candidates on most issues important to voters. But voters who value honesty are overwhelmingly for Harris, and voters looking for strong leadership are mostly in Trump’s corner. Will this still be the case on Wednesday morning?”
According to the poll, almost 70% of Americans said they would watch the debate, and 30% of registered voters think it would influence their decision on who to support. However, 69% of respondents say it probably won’t be beneficial.
In another encouraging development for Trump, he narrowed the deficit against Harris in a national contest by two points, with the vice president barely edging him.
In the most recent survey of those registered to vote in a contest with several candidates, Harris defeated Trump 49% to 48%. When registered voters were pitted against multiple candidates back in August, Harris was leading 48% to 45%.
In contrast, among registered voters, Trump defeated President Biden 43% to 42% in the July survey.
In the September survey, Harris’ margin over Trump among those who were certain to vote increased to 51% to 48%.
According to the September results, Harris leads Trump by 15 points among women and by 12 points among males.
In the multi-candidate race, Harris received 74% of the support of black voters, while Trump received only 24% of the vote.
Voters gave her a slightly higher favorability rating than Harris, who received 47% favorable to 46% negative views, and Trump, who received 45% favorable to 50% unfavorable views.
52% of respondents identified Harris as the candidate most likely to support change, far more than the 47% who said Trump. Similarly, 52% of respondents claimed that Harris is more likely than Trump to be concerned about the average American.
Regarding philosophy, 47% of respondents thought Harris was too liberal, 41% said her views were “about right,” and 9% thought she was too conservative. In the meantime, 10% thought Trump was too liberal, 43% thought he was too conservative, and 43% said he was “about right.”
46% of respondents stated they would support the Democrat in the generic congressional ballot, while 45% said they would support the Republican.
Regarding topics, Trump did better on immigration (53%), the Middle East (51%), and the economy (52%), while Harris led on abortion (56%).
Harris had a 1.9 percentage-point nationwide lead over Trump in the most recent RealClearPolitics aggregate of surveys going into Tuesday night’s debate. According to the RCP no-tossup battleground state map, Trump is up.
During an interview on Fox & Friends, Trump blasted ABC News, accusing the first debate moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, of ganging up on him while giving Harris a pass all night on her arguments.
Taylor Swift—who described herself as a “childless cat lady”—also announced who she would be endorsing just minutes after the presidential debate on Tuesday night between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
