Harris’s lead, her biggest yet, is similar among likely voters and when third-party candidates are included
A strong performance in Tuesday’s debate has boosted Vice President Kamala Harris to her biggest lead yet over former President Donald Trump, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
In previous Yahoo News/YouGov polls — one following last month’s Democratic National Convention and one released immediately after the vice president entered the race on July 21 — Harris and Trump were effectively tied. Harris’s best showing was a narrow 47% to 46% edge in August.
But the new poll of 1,755 U.S. adults — one of the first conducted after the Sept. 10 debate — shows Harris (50%) surging to a five-point lead over Trump (45%) among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup. She leads by a similar margin when third-party candidates are included (48% to 44%) and when only likely voters are surveyed (49% to 45%).
To put Harris’s numbers in perspective, President Biden — the man she replaced atop the Democratic ticket — never hit 50% against Trump in any Yahoo News/YouGov poll taken during Biden’s presidency. The last time Biden topped 47% was in May 2023.
Harris’s new lead is more about her gaining ground than Trump slipping. While the former president has held steady around 45%, Harris is now winning a significantly higher share of Democrats (95% vs. 90%) and 2020 Biden voters (92% vs. 80%) than Biden was.
Harris is also performing 4 points better than Biden was among Latin Americans, 5 points better among women, 14 points better among Black Americans and 17 points better among Americans ages 18 to 29. (These groups have small sample sizes and therefore larger margins of error than the survey as a whole.)
And Harris is flipping independents as well. Before Tuesday’s debate, Harris trailed Trump by 9 points (35% to 44%) with that crucial bloc; she now leads by 10 (47% to 37%).
Debate performance helps propel shift toward Harris
The latest Yahoo News/YouGov survey suggests that Tuesday’s debate has tipped a small but potentially consequential number of swing voters toward Harris — at least for the moment.
Among Americans who either watched the debate or followed the subsequent coverage of it, a full 56% say that Harris won. Just 26% say the same about Trump. In a break with longstanding partisan patterns, the number of Democrats who say Harris won (94%) is nearly 40 points higher than the number of Republicans who say Trump did (57%). Just 21% of independents think the former president came out on top.
Nearly half of those familiar with the debate, in fact, say Trump delivered a poor performance (48%), while a clear majority (58%) say Harris’s performance was either excellent or good.
That same group sees Harris as the candidate who came across as more “presidential” (51% to 35%), “coherent” (50% to 29%), “competent” (50% to 36%), “focused on policy” (48% to 34%) and “strong” (47% to 39%). Trump was seen as more “insulting” (53% to 28%) and “untruthful” (49% to 35%) — as well as more responsible than Harris for making the debate “embarrassing” (50% to 29%), “painful” (46% to 30%) and “infuriating” (44% to 33%) to watch.
But Harris didn’t just win the personality contest Tuesday night; she won the policy war too. Respondents who followed the debate say the vice president gave better answers than Trump on every issue except immigration. That includes abortion (53% to 30%), the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol (49% to 28%), her own record (45% to 31%), the cost of living (45% to 39%) and even Trump’s record (44% to 36%).
As a result, 46% of them now say the debate made them think better of Harris. Just 20% say the same about Trump — including a mere 15% of independents.
YAHOO
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