In less than 40 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will go head-to-head with Donald Trump as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.
A new set of polls show Harris ahead overall in the swing states, with improved standing in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada, but a shrinking lead in Wisconsin.
Though Harris is leading among young people, one in six have still not committed to voting at all in November.
The candidates are preparing for an intense final stretch of the campaign, with the needle ready to swing either way. So how will Harris and Trump fare in November?
Harris has a 2.9-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls.
Fresh polls from the swing states by Bloomberg/Morning Consult have Harris ahead by +3 points on average, ranging from neck-in-neck with Trump to a +7 point lead.
The poll of over 6,000 registered voters in the swing states was conducted from September 19-25, with margins of error ranging from 1 to 4 percent in each state.
In Pennsylvania, which hosted the first Harris-Trump presidential debate, Harris has seen her lead increase from +4 points to +5 points since August.
The state had previously been leaning towards Trump when Biden was on the ticket.
In Nevada, Harris has the strongest 7-point lead over Trump, with 52 percent of the vote to 45 percent.
In Georgia, the two candidates are tied at 49 percent each, while Harris’s 5-point lead in Wisconsin has shrunk to 3 points ahead of Trump.
Harris is also 3 points ahead in Michigan and Arizona, and 2 points ahead in North Carolina.
While the economy remains the top issue for swing state voters, the perceived “competency gap” is shrinking: 45 percent of swing state voters think Harris can better handle the economy, slightly behind Trump at 49 percent.
It is worth noting that separate New York Times polls last week showed a lead for Trump in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. This variation indicates that the swing states are still open to change before November.
Independents
A separate nationwide Morning Consult poll, of 11,000 likely voters nationwide from September 20-22, shows Harris with a five-point lead overall.
The tracker poll has Harris leading among the elusive independent voters — by +4 points overall — at 46 percent to Trump’s 42 percent.
However, this margin is unchanged from the same poll in mid-August, when Harris had 42 percent of the independent vote and Trump had 38 percent (a 4-point lead).
What has changed is that the number of independent voters who are undecided, or voting for a third candidate, has dropped from one in five (20 percent) to one in 10 (12 percent).
It is important to note that these undecided voters are independents who are likely to vote. Meaning that once they make their choice, this is likely to swing the odds in either candidate’s favor.
Interestingly, 6 percent of independents are still planning to vote for a third-party candidate, even now that Robert F Kennedy Jr has endorsed Trump.
With Cornel West, Jill Stein, and Chase Oliver still in play, it remains to be seen how many independent votes they will attract on election day.
Who will vote?
A YouGov/Economist poll has Harris with a three-point lead among registered voters, at 47 percent and Trump at 44 percent. The poll shows a wide 25-point margin for Harris among young voters, aged 29 and under.
However, according to the same poll, the younger generations are also the least committed to voting, with 13 percent of the 18-29-year-olds surveyed saying they will “maybe” vote, while 3 percent will not vote or are still unsure.
This amounts to 16 percent who are on the fence or not voting, higher than any other age group, and higher than the average of 9 percent. Just 65 percent of the 18 to 29-year-olds polled said they would definitely vote in November.
This is in comparison to 77 percent of 30 to 44-year-olds, 85 percent of 45 to 64-year-olds, and 94 percent of the 65+ age group.
Though the numbers may seem dismal, and do represent a degree of hesitancy among younger voters, the overall picture is significantly more engaged than in 2020.
The same YouGov/Economist poll at this stage in the 2020 presidential election showed that nearly a third of young people (27 percent) were not committed to voting in November, with 10 percent “maybe” voting and 17 percent “definitely/probably” not voting.
Arizona: key issues
In Arizona — a historically Republican state that has 11 electoral college votes and flipped for Biden in 2020 — polls have shown inconsistent leads for both Harris and Trump.
The Trump campaign has made frequent stops in the state over the summer.
In a state that borders Mexico, some one in five (19 percent) of Arizona voters say that immigration is the most important issue affecting their vote, according to the same poll.
This is second to the economy, which is the number one issue impacting voters statewide and nationwide.
The majority (51 percent) of Arizona voters believe that Trump is better equipped to handle the top issues, which has flipped since August when Harris was slightly more trusted.
This indicates that, despite the overall enthusiasm for Harris’s debate performance, Arizona voters may favor Trump and his approach to key issues. As a generally Republican state, this is unsurprising.
Demographics
A separate poll from The New York Times and Siena College last week has Trump and Harris in a national deadlock, each at 47 percent of the vote among likely voters.
This is a slight shift from the same poll in early September, which had Trump at +2 points ahead of Harris in a surprise result.
The new poll, taken after the debate and with 2,437 likely voters, had 67 percent of respondents saying that Harris performed well in the debate, compared to 40 percent who thought the same about Trump.
Harris retains a strong lead among women (12 points ahead), while Trump enjoys a 14-point lead among men.
In particular, Harris has improved her vote share among under-34s following the debate, with a 7 percent increase to 58 percent of the vote and a 21-point lead over Trump.
Meanwhile, her lead within the 30-44 age bracket has shrunk, with Trump just 4 points behind; though Trump’s margin in the 45-64 age bracket has also decreased to just 2 points.
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Among white, college-educated voters, the early September poll showed a 12-point preference for Harris. Following the debate, this group has seen the most substantial jump, with a 25-point lead for Harris at 61 percent of the vote.
Interestingly, a pre-debate poll from The New York Times showed that nearly a third of voters (28 percent) felt they needed to learn more about Harris, compared to 9 percent who would say the same about Trump.
But the debate was helpful for Harris in that regard, as half of voters (50 percent) feel that they “learned a lot” about her during the debate, with just a third saying the same about Trump, according to The New York Times poll.
Favorability
The vice president has suffered overall negative favorability ratings since July 2021, which is not uncommon for those holding public office.
But on September 18, for the first time in over three years, Harris’s positive and negative favorability ratings were equal, according to the average of all favorability polls collated by FiveThirtyEight.
The debate may have been Harris’s chance to turn around her public perception, and ultimately foster a more favorable opinion of herself and her campaign.
The same cannot be said of Trump, whose net favorability is at a -9.9 negative rating, and has been negative since the last election. JD Vance also entered the race with a negative rating, which has only grown with time, now at -10.7 percent on average.
Democratic running mate Tim Walz is the only candidate who entered the race with a positive rating and has kept it, with an average favorability rating of +3.9, according to FiveThirtyEight.
However, incumbent President Joe Biden has also suffered negative ratings since September 2021; and has the lowest favorability on average, at -14.6 per cent.
Trust in Trump or Harris?
Trust for Harris and Trump is split down the line on major issues.
An ABC News poll shows that Americans believe Trump will better handle the economy, inflation and immigration, while Harris is more trusted on healthcare, gun violence, and abortion, among other issues.
The economy remains the most important factor for many voters, with an Independent analysis showing that economic issues are pivotal for independent voters in many key states.
As we near the one-year mark of the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, Americans say they are more confident (+6 percent) in Trump’s ability to handle the Israel-Hamas war; though only half of Americans view the war as important to their vote.
CNN’s snap poll following the first Trump-Harris debate shows that Harris managed to turn the tide with some voters.
In the wake of the debate, more voters now believe Harris better understands the issues of people like them (44 percent) compared to Trump (40 percent). Before the debate, the opposite was true.