Three months ahead of the highly anticipated presidential election and the newly nominated Democratic candidate is pushing her way to the front in the polls.
Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly slightly ahead of former president and GOP nominee Donald Trump. Recent polling shows that the new Democratic nominee has been inching ahead of the controversial Republican for the past two, consecutive weeks.
Harris unexpectedly moved up on the ticket after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of his re-election campaign three weeks ago. The commander-in-chief endorsed her immediately, and she was officially nominated last week, after gaining 99% of the votes in a virtual roll call for the party.
Days after her ascension to the presidential candidate, Harris proved to have already gained some popularity among voters. According to a poll launched between August 4 and August 6, Trump is down 2 points to his opponent, scoring a favorability of 45% compared to his 43%.
One week prior, Harris was favored by 46% of registered voters and Trump by only 44%. Both surveys were conducted by The Economist/YouGov. Additionally, two weeks before the most recent poll was released, Trump trailed by three points, earning 41% of support next to Harris’ 44%. The Democratic nominee announced this week that her vice-presidential running mate will be Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.
In the chaos of the last month, experts have also taken time to compare the polling numbers of Trump, Harris, and Biden. The GOP nominee reached his most favorable ratings since 2020 this year, as he averages 43% support from voters.
This increased liking for the former president came after Democrats fumbled to find Biden’s replacement and the Republican National Convention gained a notable boost after the failed assassination attempt against the party’s candidate.
Half of voters in support of Harris say that they would vote for her as a candidate and the other half says they are simply voting against Trump. When Biden was still on the ticket, only 37% were set on voting for him as a candidate and 63% just wanted cast a vote against Trump.
