Here’s who’s winning in the latest Trump-Harris presidential polls

On November 1, 2024By Littum

Upper line

Vice President Kamala Harris holds a single-digit lead over former President Donald Trump in the seven most recent national polls — as polls show a virtual dead heat race for the White House marked by tossups in all seven swing states, keeping the race wildly unpredictable as the election nears themselves.

Kamala Harris speaks during a CNN Presidential Town Hall on October 23 in Aston, Pennsylvania.

Getty Images

Key facts

Harris is up 49%-48% in the latest HarrisX/Forbes poll of likely voters released Thursday — but about 10% of likely voters and 16% of all registered voters could still change their minds.

Harris also leads Trump 49%-47% among likely voters recently Economist/YouGov survey out Wednesday, with 2% undecided and about 3% backing other candidates (margin of error 3.6) — a slight narrowing from Harris’ 49%-46% edge last week.

Harris is up 51%-47% – with only 3% still undecided – in a very big one likely voter turnout by the Cooperative Election Study, a survey supported by several universities and carried out by YouGov, which surveyed around 50,000 people from 1 to 25 October.

Trump also trails Harris 44%-43% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll vote published on Tuesday (margin of error 3 points), representing a narrow lead for Harris since she entered the race in July, where the previous Reuters/Ipsos poll had her ahead by two points.

Harris is up three points over Trump, 50%-47%, in Morning Consult’s weekly surveyalso released Tuesday (margin of error 1 point), after she led by four points, 50%-46%, in the group’s two previous polls.

Harris leads Trump by four points, 51%-47%, in one ABC/Ipsos poll of likely voters released Sunday, a slight increase from her 50%-48% edge in early October, while a CBS/YouGov survey out Sunday shows Harris up 50%-49%, a shift from the vice president’s 51%-48% lead in mid-October (the ABC poll had a margin of error of 2.5, and the CBS poll’s margin of error was 2, 6).

An Emerson College Poll (October 23-24) published Saturday has the two candidates tied at 49%, after finding Harris leading 49% to 48% a week earlier (the poll has a margin of error of 3), marking the first time in Emerson’s weekly poll that Harris has not had a lead since August.

Trump and Harris are also tied at 48% among likely voters in a New York Times/Siena poll vote released Friday (margin of error 2.2), results that are “not encouraging” to Harris, as Democrats have won the popular vote in recent elections even when they’ve lost the White House, the Times notes.

The Times poll represents a drop in support for Harris since the paper’s previous poll in early October showed her with a 49%-46% lead over Trump, while at least three surveys over the past week show Trump with a narrow advantage and six others found. Harris leads.

The candidates are also dead even, at 47%, in a CNN/SSRS vote released Friday (margin of error 3.1), also representing a downward trend for Harris, who led Trump 48% to 47% in the groups’ September survey, while their poll just after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race found Trump with 49% support and Harris with 46%.

Trump is ahead 48% to 46% in one CNBC survey of registered voters released Thursday (margin of error 3.1), and he leads 47% to 45% in a The Wall Street Journal registered voter poll out Wednesday (margin of error 2.5) – a shift in Trump’s favor since August, when Harris led 47% to 45% in a Journal study.

Trump also leads Harris by two points, 51% to 49%, nationally among likely voters, including those leaning toward one candidate, according to a HarrisX/Forbes poll released Wednesday (margin of error 2.5), and he’s up one point , 49% to 48%, without so-called slimmers.

Harris erased Trump’s lead over Biden since he announced his candidacy on July 21, though her lead has declined over the past two months, peaking at 3.7 points in late August, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted voting average.

Important reminder: Presidential polls have often been wrong

And there’s a lot of speculation about how they’re going wrong this year — and who it might benefit. Read all about it in this story.

Who do the polls predict will win the election, Harris or Trump?

Trump is favored to win the Electoral College 52 times out of 100, compared to 47 for Harris, according to FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast.

big number

1.2. That’s how many points Harris Trump leads in FiveThirtyEight’s poll average. Meanwhile, RealClearPolitics’ poll average shows Trump up by 0.5, and Nate Silver has Harris up by 0.9 points in his Silver Bulletin forecast.

How does Harris fare against Trump in swing states?

Harris leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Trump leads in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona; they are bound in Nevada, according to the Silver Bulletin. However, many of the seven swing states have margins of less than one percentage point.

Surprising facts

A vote from NBC News published Sept. 29 found that while Harris still leads Trump among Latinos, the lead is shrinking. The NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll – which was conducted 16-23 September poll of 1,000 registered Latino voters — showed 54% supported Harris, compared to 40% who supported Trump and 6% who said they were unsure who they would vote for. Support for Harris is higher than it was when Biden ran against Trump, NBC said, but is still significantly lower than previous leads held by Democratic candidates, including a 36-point lead in 2020 polls and 50-point lead in 2016 measurements. The measurement had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

How did the debate affect opinion polls?

Polls before the debate showed Harris’ rise in the polls appeared to be plateauing, including an NPR/PBS/Marist map out of the registered voters taken 3.-5. September, showing Harris leading Trump 49% to 48%, down from a three-point lead in August. Most post-debate surveys show that the majority of respondents believe that Harris won the debate, but not enough to significantly affect the horse race between the two. A New York Times/Siena vote of likely voters released on September 19 found that the majority of voters in all demographics gave positive reviews of Harris’ debate performance on September 10, with 67% saying she did well overall, compared to 40 % who said the same about Trump. Harris rose 52%-46% among likely voters and 51%-47% among registered voters in a ABC News/Ipsos poll taken days after the debate on 11-13 September, essentially unchanged from her six-point lead with likely voters in at the end of August and the beginning of August ABC/Ipsos surveys – although 63% of Americans Harris said winningly the debate.

Key background

Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 after resisting calls from his own party for weeks to end his re-election bid in the wake of his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate. He immediately endorsed Harris and she announced plans to seek the nomination. The party quickly coalesced around her, with 99% of Democratic delegates voting to officially nominate her in a virtual roll call ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as his running mate, weeks after Trump announced Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his vice presidential pick. ABC News hosted the first debate between Harris and Trump on September 10 from Philadelphia. Harris’ rise in the polls is coupled with an increase in Democratic enthusiasm for the election, which has nearly doubled since Harris entered the race, from 46% in June to 85% now, while enthusiasm among Republicans has remained stagnant at 71%, according to a Monmouth University vote published August 14.