Poll: Harris jumps to a small national lead over Trump

Vice President Harris has upended the presidential race and has now built a 51%-48% lead over former President Trump, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

That result is 4 points better than just after Harris got into the race two weeks ago when President Biden bowed out. Harris maintains a 3-point lead (48%-45%) when third-party choices are offered, too.

Fueling her rise are Black voters, white women with college degrees and women who identify as political independents. She is doing 20 to 30 points better with them than when she first got in, leading to improvement in the suburbs and with white voters overall.

On the issues, the negative views of the economy are not sticking to Harris the way they did Biden. Trump is still more trusted on the economy, but only by 3 points over Harris (51%-48%), compared to 9 points over Biden (54%-45%) in June.

Harris is also seeing improvement on how she would handle immigration, though Trump is still more trusted on that topic by 6 points (52%-46%). Harris’ best issue is handling abortion rights. She has a 15-point advantage on that.

The survey was conducted from Thursday through Sunday, before Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice-presidential running mate. Marist interviewed 1,613 adults via cellphone, landline and online research panels in English and in Spanish. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points, meaning results could be roughly 3 points higher or lower.

Women, Black voters and independents have all moved toward Harris

Because of Harris’ gains with certain groups, she’s also improved her standing in the suburbs and with white voters overall.

But there’s now a 22-point gender gap, which is wider than the margin between Trump and Biden in July. Harris now leads by 13 points with women (55%-42%), but is losing men by 9 points (54%-45%). Considering the margin of error, those are close to the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to exit polls.

Harris’ biggest boost is coming with Black voters. She has gone from a 23-point lead with Black voters over Trump a couple of weeks ago, when many voters moved into the undecided camp, to a 54-point lead now. Harris is moving closer to territory where Democrats need to be with Black voters.

Some Black voters, who appeared to be considering Trump, have moved away from him, as he’s dropped 10 points with them.

Harris is also now winning independents, something Biden was not doing. Harris is up 9 points with independents (53%-44%). She was down 14 points with them last month. And in early July, Trump was beating Biden by almost 20 points with the group. That’s a huge turnaround.

Harris has also improved with white voters overall. Harris has gone from 40% with white voters overall to 46% in this survey, which is closer to where Biden was, and that’s very high for a Democrat. In fact, no Democrat has scored that high with white voters in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Biden got 41% in 2020, Barack Obama in 2008 won 43%.

That improvement is mostly because of college-educated white women. White voters without degrees, a core Trump base group, are heavily in Trump’s favor and their margin is unchanged. Two-thirds of college-educated white women, though, are now in Harris’ camp, which would be far higher than the percentage that sided with Biden in 2020.

She’s also winning with older voters. Harris is leading Trump by 11 points with Baby Boomers (55%-44%), for example.

Latinos have also moved in Harris’ favor. Fifty-eight percent say they would vote for her now, compared to 51% last month. That’s still below the 65% Biden won in 2020.

Harris is not where she needs to be with voters under 45 at this point. Biden won them in 2020 by 14 points. Harris and Trump right now are tied with the group. Where Harris does far better than Biden with the group, though, is retaining them when third parties are introduced.

Biden was seeing double-digit drop offs with Gen Z/Millennials, for example. Harris, on the other hand, maintains and slightly expands her margin when respondents have a choice of candidates other than the two major-party picks.

Harris is benefiting from a boost in enthusiasm with core Democratic voter groups

Black, Latino and younger voters are saying they’re more fired up to vote now that Harris is in the race.

Black voters, Latinos and Gen Z/Millennial voters have all jumped double-digits in saying they’re definitely voting.

In July, just 71% of Black voters, 68% of Latinos and 65% of Gen Z/Millennials said they were definitely voting, among the lowest of any groups.

But now, that’s up to 81% with Black voters, 84% with Latinos and 80% with Gen Z/Millennials, closer to being on par with white voters than in previous surveys.

Third parties seeing their lowest marks of the election

With Harris in the race, people appear to be moving away from third parties.

All of the third-party candidates are seeing their worst scores since Marist started asking about them in April. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent, is down to just 5%. Professor Cornel West, also running as an independent, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver are all polling at or below 1%.

Kennedy still does best with those who have an unfavorable opinion of both Trump and Harris, pulling in about a third of those voters.

People are split on who they think will win, but far more say Harris will than they said of Biden

Last month, respondents were 20 points more likely to say Trump would beat Biden (59%-39%). Now, they’re split (48%-48%).

Notably, independents have flipped from 58% thinking Trump would win to 52% now saying they think Harris will.

People are also more satisfied with their choices, though only 47% say they are compared to 50% who say they are not. In June, there was a 10-point difference between people satisfied (42%) and those who were dissatisfied with their choices (52%).

Being honest and trustworthy is the most important quality for a president

While trustworthiness was the most important quality for Democrats and independent voters, a plurality of Republicans said a “strong leader” was most important to them.

All signs continue to point to a close election – not just in the presidential but also for Congress

Forty-seven percent said they want to see Democrats in control of Congress, while 45% said Republicans. That 2-point advantage is unchanged from June.

Democrats traditionally need a wider advantage in that score to make significant gains – in 2022, when they denied Republicans from winning a wave of House seats, they had a 4-point edge in the Marist poll; in 2020, it was 8, but Democrats lost House seats; they were +6 in 2018 and made significant gains, however; in 2014, when Republicans won seats, Republicans were +5 on the question.

The congressional ballot and the change in numbers of seats don’t always correlate cleanly because of where the most competitive seats are that cycle. In this cycle, for example, many are in suburban areas in New York, California and around Philadelphia, where Democrats have advantages in presidential years because of higher turnout among their core voter groups.

Biden’s approval is up

Now that Biden has dropped out of the race, his approval rating is seeing a bounce.

His approval is now 46%, which is the highest since February of 2023 and up 5 points since last month.