Poll Tracker Harris vs. Trump: Latest updates on the 2024 presidential election

Vice President Kamala Harris is running for the White House alongside her running mate Tim Walz after replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket just months before Election Day.

According to a new poll, Harris has the only positive approval rating of any candidate and is ahead in almost all swing states.

So how will Harris actually fare against Donald Trump and his vice presidential candidate JD Vance in November?

Harris now has a 2.8 point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls compiled by Thirty-fiveEight.

On average, Harris is slightly ahead of Trump in national polls, but the race remains close.

What do voters think?

A recent poll by Emerson College (August 12-14) shows that Kamala Harris, at +2 percent, is the only candidate of whom voters have an overall positive opinion.

This is much more positive than that of Trump and his running mate Vance, who have a net negative rating of -10 according to a survey of 1,000 likely US voters.

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Meanwhile, vice presidential candidate Walz has an overall neutral popularity rating, with 39 percent of voters holding a positive opinion and 39 percent holding an unfavorable opinion.

Interestingly, one in five voters (22 percent) said they had never heard of Walz a week after being elected. For JD Vance, the number was even lower at 12 percent.

When asked how much they approve of the job of incumbent President Joe Biden, voters expressed a net disapproval of -14 percent.

Fighting on the battlefields

In the seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – a war is still raging between the Democratic and Republican campaign teams.

Research from the Cook Political Report shows that Harris has a lead in six of seven states, while Trump is strong in Nevada.

The poll shows Harris' biggest lead in Arizona, where Biden won by just 0.4 percent in 2020.

This is a significant departure from the same polls in May, when Trump and Biden were in a head-to-head race, with Trump leading in six states and tied in Wisconsin.

However, there are still differences between pollsters in the swing states. A YouGov/CBS poll conducted up to the same date (August 2) suggests that neither candidate had a significant lead in the swing states.

Overall, polls in swing states have consistently shown that Harris has gained popularity compared to her predecessor and is on track to beat Trump in some states.

Republicans are trying to downplay Harris' growing lead as a honeymoon phase, but it is clear that the Democratic candidate has maintained her momentum since entering the presidential race.

Latest YouGov/Economist Polls (August 11-13) show that Harris' lead has remained stable since she put Tim Walz on the Democratic ticket and that there has been no discernible upswing against Trump.

Both candidates gained one percentage point compared to the same poll a week earlier; Harris is now at 46 percent and Trump is at 44 percent.

Independent voters are still largely divided between the two candidates: 36 percent want to vote for Harris and 37 percent for Trump.

National polls show significant differences in the tendencies of independent voters, as these voters are by nature a diverse group. It is clear that no candidate has emerged as a clear favorite so far.

Many of the latest New York Times/The Siena College poll, conducted as Walz joined Harris in the campaign, shows the vice president with a four-point lead in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a significant departure from Biden's trajectory in the swing states.

Demographics

Trump's main supporters remain male voters, the 45-64 age group, and white voters without a college degree. But in the latter group, Trump appears to have lost some of his influence over Harris compared to Biden.

Harris performs best among young voters, female voters and black voters, where Harris has a lead of +68 points.

Although Harris appears to be making significant progress in national and swing polls, her campaign continues to face a challenge: a potential “personality gap.”

A previous NYT/According to a Siena poll, Harris fared better than Trump on several measures – intelligence, presidential temperament and concern for “people like you” – but respondents were still more likely to think Trump was the stronger leader.

And when Harris-Walz campaigned in Michigan,telegraph The poll painted a confusing picture, showing that swing state voters were more likely to agree with Democrats' policy positions on economic and policing issues, but still “trusted Trump more on those same issues” than Harris.

With Harris having more time to cement her position as the Democratic presidential candidate, the gap between party affiliation and the candidate's popularity could narrow, as Trump has had about eight years to get his policy positions across to voters.