Poll: Harris holds slight national lead over Trump; swing states to determine outcome

By Casey Harper
The Center Square

Vice President Kamala Harris holds a slight edge over former President Donald Trump in national polling less than one month from election day.

The Center Square Voters' Voice poll, conducted with Nobel Predictive Insights and released Wednesday, shows Harris leads Trump 49% to 47%, a tight race that's within the poll's +/-2.1% margin of error. The poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States.

The race likely will be determined by a handful of swing states where other polling shows a near tie.

The poll comes after a tumultuous few weeks in the campaign led to the ousting of President Joe Biden from the ticket and the installment of Harris, who has made the race more competitive.

“You’ll notice here that Harris is a real improvement over Biden for Democrats,” David Byler, head of research at Noble Predictive Insights, told The Center Square. “Biden was careening toward some real, real bad numbers before he dropped out, and Harris has essentially brought the topline numbers back to where Biden was in 2020, which is an extremely close race by the time the votes were counted.”

Voting has already begun in many states with election day taking place Nov. 5. Trump and Harris had one debate, as did their respective running mates, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Harris was generally considered the winner of the presidential debate and Vance the winner of the vice presidential debate, though opinions differed.

The survey, which queried nearly 2,300 likely voters, asked respondents: “If the 2024 presidential election were being held today, who would you vote for?”

When given the option of more candidates, 46% of likely voters supported Trump and 49% chose Harris while 4% said they were not sure, and 1% chose Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Notably, Harris is underperforming with Black voters. Trump received 16% support from Black voters and Harris received 79% support. While Harris' support among Black voters is much higher than Trump’s support, that figure is lower than past Democrats.

“You see Harris not doing quite as well with Black voters as other past Democratic nominees,” Byler said. “You see Trump making inroads there that he has not before. You also see that Harris has improved on Biden’s numbers among Latino voters, but is still not scoring what Democrats were seeing in the Obama era among that demographic.

“A lot of nonwhite and working class demographics are more favorable to Harris than they were to Biden, but Harris has not brought back the Obama era,” Byler added.

Harris grabbed 51% support from women, compared to Trump’s 40%, while Trump won men 50% compared to Harris’ 43% support.

The poll found 36% of Hispanics support Trump while 61% support Harris. Harris won over those with a college degree while Trump does better with respondents without a college degree.

Trump won white voters with 52% support to Harris' 43%.

Urban voters preferred Harris, 58% to 38%, while rural voters backed Trump 55% to 39%.

The two candidates mostly split the coveted suburban voters, with Harris edging out Trump 48% to 46%.

Harris performs markedly better among younger voters than did Biden, who faced persistent concerns about his age and mental acuity when his campaign was still alive.

“The Republican party is becoming more working class, more populist, more popular with nonwhite voters even though Harris has stopped some of the bleeding that was happening with Biden,” Byler said, adding that Democrats are becoming “more the party of college-educated knowledge worker professionals.”

The margin of error in the poll was +/-2.1% for likely voters.

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