Vice President Kamala Harris has regained a slight lead among likely voters nationally in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, albeit the race was close enough to leave the outcome of the 2024 presidential election up to the uncertainties of the Electoral College.

Attendance is crucial. Only 2 percentage points divide Harris and Donald Trump among all registered voters, 49-47%. This leads to a small Harris advantage among likely voters, 51-47%, with some pro-Harris groups slightly more likely to vote.

Compared to earlier this month, Harris has regained a more typical Democratic lead among Hispanic people and widened her lead among suburban women, while remaining strong in core groups, including Black people. Trump is retreating in rural areas and among non-college-educated white men, waging a competitive battle among younger men.

See PDF for the full results.

Problems

The candidates divide the pie in confidence to handle top cases. Among Trump’s best are immigration, with a 12-point lead over Harris among registered voters; the economy in general, +8 points; inflation, +7; and the conflict in the Middle East, also +7. Harris responds with double-digit confidence to address abortion (+15) and health care (+10); she also has an 8-point confidence lead when it comes to “protecting American democracy” and +6 when it comes to helping the middle class.

The economy and inflation remain a prominent concern, with 90% and 85% of registered voters respectively citing these as extremely important when voting. But this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, with fieldwork by Ipsos, finds a shift in intensity: the stocks that place the greatest importance on the economy or inflation, calling it “one of the most important issues” when voting, have fallen by 7 points each since September.

Any shift in economic concerns would likely help Harris, given her lack of confidence in addressing the issue and her dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s economic performance. President Joe Biden is operating with an approval rating of just 36%; distinguishing himself from him was a challenge for Harris. She has 95% support among registered voters who approve of Biden’s job performance, compared to 16% among the majority who disapprove.

It is also striking that the protection of democracy scores almost as high in importance as inflation, as mentioned by 81%. That is well above the importance of immigration, which Trump has responded harshly, and abortion, a central focus for Harris. But these reflect partisan realities: Democrats are far more likely than others to choose abortion as the top issue; Republicans, to select immigration.

Features

As they battle over issues, Harris continues to lead Trump on most personal attributes. Judged head-to-head, Harris leads Trump by 11 points, 49-38%, because he is seen as having the mental acuity needed to serve effectively as president — a measure by which Trump had led Biden by 31 points.

Harris’ advantage increases to 29 points when it comes to having the physical health to serve effectively; she is also more likely than Trump to be seen as honest and trustworthy, by 15 points; to understand the problems of people like you, with 10 points; and to share your personal values, with 8 points.

That said, there is another personal characteristic on which Trump is essentially in step with Harris, one that could be important in an unstable world: confidence in a crisis. Forty-three percent choose Harris on this point, 41% Trump.

These are not the only differences in views on the candidates’ characteristics. As reported Friday, registered voters are twice as likely to call Trump a fascist as they are to say it about Harris, and 16 points more likely to think he often says things that aren’t true. But they are also five points more likely to think that Harris, rather than Trump, is making proposals just to win votes, and not that she plans to implement them.

Voter groups

Eight percent of adults (and 10% of registered voters) say they have already voted (early last week); a disproportionately Democratic group, they went 62-33% for Harris.

This poll shows a notable shift in voting preferences among Hispanic people, 12% of likely voters and a potentially important group given the close contest, especially in the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada. Biden won the Hispanic population by 33 points in 2020, according to ABC News’ exit poll, and Harris now leads this group by a similar 30 points, 64-34% — up from 55-43% in early October.

Trump has some compensation for Harris’ gains among Hispanic people. He now scores +41 points among white men without a college degree, essentially matching his performance in this group in the 2020 ABC News exit poll, as well as +41 points among rural voters.

Additionally, men under 40 scored +6 points for Harris early this month; now they are +5 for Trump. This change is not statistically significant, and neither is the difference between the candidates, given the sample size. Nevertheless, the result is in stark contrast to the preferences of women under 40, who favor Harris by a margin of 34 points.

Trump has a slight +6 among men overall, Harris +14 among women – almost exactly the average gender gap in presidential elections since 1996. This includes a 19-point lead for Harris among suburban women, versus a slim margin of 10 points for her earlier in October in this group.

The long-standing gender gap in presidential preference reflects the fact that women are more likely than men to be Democrats — by 13 points among likely voters in this poll. This is also reflected in the importance of the issue, with women more likely than men, by double digits, to choose both abortion and health care as top issues in their voting choice.

Many of these results among groups are similar to those in the 2020 exit poll. There is one difference: Harris is outperforming Biden among college-educated white women four years ago. It is also strong among graduates in general.

Another difference is important for Trump, though: He is essentially on par with Harris among independents, a group Biden won by 13 points in 2020, versus a paltry Harris +1 now. The candidate who won the independent elections has won nine of the last twelve presidential elections.

Rise

Overall voting preferences are essentially the same among the general population (Harris +1) and registered voters (Harris +2). As noted, this moves to a slight Harris +4 among likely voters.

The shift toward Harris among likely voters depends in part on consolidated support among Democratic grassroots groups, especially Black people and liberals. While Harris has a 70-point lead among all black people, that rises to 83 points among likely black voters, 90-7%. Ninety-six percent of likely liberal voters support Harris, compared to 91% of liberals overall. Moreover, she goes from 53% support among all suburban women to 59% among those likely to vote. Trump, on the other hand, is not seeing significant increases in support among likely voters.

Identifying likely voters involves estimation, and it can be a moving target as campaigns work overtime to motivate turnout for their candidate and demotivate it for their opponent.

According to one possible indicator of turnout, the candidates are close in voter enthusiasm: 88% of Harris’s supporters are enthusiastic about her, as are 85% of Trump’s about him. In another respect, Harris maintains a slight lead in connecting with voters, with Americans overall five points more likely to be contacted by her campaign than by Trump’s. However, in the seven battlegrounds it is an insignificant 4 points – and the 50-47% race there remains the equivalent of a dead heat.

Methodology

This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® from October 18 to 22, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,808 adults, including 2,392 registered voters and 1,913 likely voters. The partisan divide among all adults is 29-29-30%, Democrats-Republicans-independent; 32-32-29% among registered voters; and 35-35-27% among likely voters.

The results have a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect, for the full sample and for registered voters, 2.5 points for likely voters, and 5.5 points for likely voters in the battleground states, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North -Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. View details about ABC News’ survey methodology here.