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Harris has a slight lead over Trump in the new Reuters/Ipsos poll

Vaseline October 24, 2024

Jason Lange
| Reuters

WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris held a marginal lead of 46% to 43% over former President Donald Trump, with a somber electorate saying the country is on the wrong track, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

Harris’ lead in the six-day poll, which ended Monday, was little different from her 45% to 42% lead over Trump in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted a week earlier, reinforcing the view that the battle is extremely tight with only two There are still several weeks to go until the November 5 elections.

Both polls showed Harris ahead within the margin of error, while the final poll showed her ahead by just 2 percentage points using unrounded figures.

The new poll found that voters take a dim view of the state of the economy and immigration — and that they generally favor Trump’s approach to these issues.

More: Election 2024 Live Updates: Where Do Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Stand in the Polls?

About 70% of registered voters in the poll said the cost of living was heading in the wrong direction, while 60% said the economy was heading in the wrong direction and 65% said the same about immigration policies.

Voters also said the economy and immigration, along with threats to democracy, were the country’s top problems. When asked which candidate had the better approach to the issues, Trump gave a lead 46% to 38% on the economy, and 48% to 35% on immigration.

Immigration also ranked No. 1 when respondents were asked what the next president should focus on most during his first 100 days in office. About 35% chose immigration, with 11% citing income inequality and an equal share of 10% citing health care and taxes.

But Trump fared poorly when asked which candidate could better tackle political extremism and threats to democracy, with Harris leading 42% to 35%. She also led abortion and health care policies.

More: Donald Trump has promised a ‘mass deportation’. It would cost billions.

An exceptionally exciting race

Harris’ lead over Trump may not be enough to win the election, even if it holds through November 5.

National surveys, including those from Reuters/Ipsos, provide important signals about the views of the electorate, but the Electoral College results will determine the winner on a state-by-state basis, with seven battleground states likely to be decisive. Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and triumphed in the Electoral College, even though she won the national popular vote by two points.

Polls show Harris and Trump are neck-and-neck in these battleground states.

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The poll signaled that voters — especially Democrats — may be more excited about this year’s election than they were before the November 2020 presidential election, when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump.

About 79% of registered voters in the poll — including 87% of Democrats and 84% of Republicans — said they were “completely confident” they would vote in the presidential election. The share of respondents who definitely will vote was up from 74% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from October 23 to 27, 2020, when 74% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans said they would definitely vote .

The new poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Harris entered the race in July after Biden ended his reelection efforts following a poor debate performance against Trump in June. Trump was widely seen as the front-runner at the time, based in part on his perceived strength in the economy after several years of high inflation under the Biden administration, which has subsided in recent months.

Given the close match, the candidates’ efforts to ensure that their supporters actually cast their votes will likely be critical in determining the winner. Only two-thirds of American adults voted in the November 2020 election, which was the highest turnout in more than a century, according to estimates from the US Census Bureau and Pew Research Center.

According to a Pew Research estimate, roughly a third of registered voters are Democrats and a third are Republicans, with the balance being independent voters or third-party supporters.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 4,129 U.S. adults online nationwide, including 3,481 registered voters. About 3,307 of respondents were considered most likely to show up on Election Day. Among these likely voters, Harris had a 3 percentage point lead over Trump, 48% to 45%.