Harris wipes out Trump’s lead in polls of US presidential race

Aljazeera

Published: July 31,2024 12:40 PM

United States Vice President Kamala Harris has erased former President Donald Trump’s lead in the race for the White House, with the Democratic and Republican standard-bearers now locked in a dead heat, newly released polling shows.

Harris has closed the gap with Trump nationwide and in key battleground states since becoming the de-facto Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race, according to a series of polls published on Tuesday.

Harris is ahead of Trump in four key battleground states, while the former president is ahead in two, according to a registered voters’ Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

Harris leads Trump in Michigan by 11 percentage points and by two points in Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada, according to the poll.

Trump has a four-point advantage in Pennsylvania and a two-point lead in North Carolina, while the pair are tied in Georgia.

Apart from Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of the results are within the margin of error.

If the poll’s outcome was replicated on election day, the candidate who won Georgia would be elected president.

In a poll commissioned by the Democratic super PAC Progress Action Fund, Harris leads Trump 48 per cent to 47 per cent in Georgia, with Trump ahead by two points in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

All the polling results, which were first published by The Hill, were within the margin of error.

In a nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll, Harris leads Trump 43 per cent to 42 per cent, which is within the margin of error.

Harris, who will be formally named the Democratic nominee on Monday, is expected to announce her running mate within days before embarking on a tour of swing states that will decide the election on November 5.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, among others, have been floated as contenders for the vice-presidential pick.

During a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday, Harris said that momentum in the race was shifting and there were signs Trump was “feeling it”.

Harris, who has aimed at Trump’s legal woes and stances on healthcare and abortion, challenged her rival to keep his commitment to debate her in September after the Republican said he could “make a case” for skipping the event.

“Well Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider meeting me on the debate stage,” she said. “Because as the saying goes, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.’”

Since Biden’s exit dramatically reshaped the race, Trump has sought to portray Harris, who ran to the left of her boss during her unsuccessful 2020 presidential run, as a candidate with extreme positions on issues including immigration and abortion.

During a campaign rally in North Carolina last week, Trump lambasted the former California senator as a “radical left-liberal, San Francisco extremist” and claimed that she made Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, look like a moderate in comparison.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, on Tuesday returned to that theme during a campaign event in Nevada.

“We don’t want a wacky San Francisco liberal serving as commander in chief,” Vance said. “We don’t want Kamala Harris.”