Former President Donald Trump appears to have made remarkable gains of about 14 points among independents and 19 points with Latino voters relative to Vice President Kamala Harris in a new poll.
Trump, 78, jumped ahead of Harris with a three-point lead among independents in a multi-candidate contest, 49% to 46%, gaining significant ground since the August poll in which he trailed Harris, 59, by 11 points, 48% to 37%, according to fresh polling from NPR/PBS News/Marist.
In between the August and September polls, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who notched 12% support in the prior survey — dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump. Additionally, Harris’ “honeymoon” from her abrupt ascension to the nomination appears to have begun leveling out.
Among Latino voters, Trump took a four-point lead, with 51% support to Harris’ 47%, in a dramatic turnaround from August, when Harris held a 15-point lead, 54% to Trump’s 39%.
“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 of the 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?”
The poll results dropped just hours before Trump and Harris are set to take the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for a verbal bout moderated by ABC News.
Some 70% of Americans indicated they’d watch the debate and 30% of registered voters believe it will impact their thinking regarding whom to support, while 69% feel that it likely won’t be helpful, per the poll.
In yet another bright spot for Trump, he closed the gap against Harris by two points in a national showdown, with the vice president edging him out only slightly.
Harris came out on top against Trump 49% to 48% in the latest poll of registered voters for a multi-candidate race. Back in August, Harris was up 48% to 45% in the multi-candidate battle among registered voters.
For comparison, in July the survey had Trump dispatching President Biden 43% to 42% among registered voters.
Among definite voters, Harris’ lead over Trump expanded to 51% to 48% in the September survey.
The September findings also reveal that Harris bests Trump among women by 15 points, while Trump tops Harris among men by 12 points.
Harris attained 74% support among black voters, compared to Trump’s 24% in the multi-candidate contest.
She also drew slightly higher marks from voters in terms of favorability, where Harris scored a 47% favorable to 46% negative view and Trump notched 45% favorable to 50% unfavorable.
When asked about the candidate most likely to support change, 52% named Harris, eclipsing the 47% who said Trump. A similar 52% argued that Harris is more likely to care about the typical American than Trump (47%).
On ideology, 47% said they felt Harris is too liberal, compared to 41% who said her leanings are “about right” and 9% too conservative. Meanwhile, 43% argued Trump was too conservative, 43% said “about right” and 10% felt the Republican was too liberal.
For the generic congressional ballot, 46% indicated they’d back the Democrat, while 45% said the Republican.
In terms of issues, Trump scored higher on immigration (53%), the economy (52%) and the Middle East (51%), whereas Harris took the lead on abortion (56%).
Heading into Tuesday night’s debate, Harris touts a 1.9 percentage-point edge over Trump nationally in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. Trump is up in the RCP no-tossup battleground state map.
The NPR/PBS News/Marist poll was conducted from Sept. 3 to 5 and sampled 1,529 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The subset of 1,413 registered voters had a MoE of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
