Vice President Kamala Harris is now leading former President Donald Trump among newly registered voters, a key demographic that President Joe Biden was losing before he exited the 2024 race.
The Democratic presidential ticket has seen a significant reversal in the polls since Biden made the unprecedented decision to step aside from the race on July 21 and endorse Harris. Harris has surged in the polls, leading Trump, the Republican nominee, in many national and some swing-state polling in which Biden was generally lagging behind.
Trump has been dismissive of the polling, saying this month that he’s “leading by a lot.” In a news conference last week, he also pointed to 2016, when many polls showed him trailing his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump ultimately won a narrow victory in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email on Wednesday.
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The New Data
New data from Cook Political Report published Tuesday suggests that Harris is making significant gains on Trump in swing states among low/mid-engagement voters and new registrants.
The report by Dave Wasserman explained that Biden was trailing Trump 41 percent to 51 percent among low/mid-engagement voters and 33 percent to 43 percent among new registrants. Now, a key reason why Harris is surging is substantial gains among these demographics.
Harris leads Trump 50 percent to 46 percent among new registrants and has gained substantially on the former president with low/mid-engagement voters. While Trump still leads among the latter demographic at 48 percent, Harris has closed the gap significantly compared to Biden and is at 45 percent.
Wasserman wrote that Harris’ gains with less engaged voters have “fundamentally redefined this year’s election.”
“But Harris’ much more competitive performance with low/mid-engagement voters and new registrants validates the idea that she’s much better-suited than Biden to appeal to non-highly-ideological voters,” he wrote.
What Do Polling Averages Show?
Most national polling averages now show Harris ahead of Trump. The FiveThirtyEight average has the Democrat at 47 percent compared to the Republican’s 43.7 percent. Similarly, the average by The New York Times has Harris at 49 percent and Trump down by 2 points, at 47 percent.
In the critical swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, FiveThirtyEight shows Harris narrowly ahead in all except Georgia. The Times average has her narrowly ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin, tied with Trump in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and the Republican leading in Georgia.
While the data may be trending in Harris’ direction, the polling suggested that Clinton was ahead of Trump by significant margins nationally, as well as in key battleground states, eight years ago. Trump went on to pull off a narrow victory. Polls similarly underestimated Trump’s support in 2020, although they correctly suggested Biden would win.
Trump made reference to his previous presidential election win, which was widely viewed as an upset, when responding to a reporter’s question about the polls during a press conference last week.
“You know, in 2016, I was polling low because people didn’t want to say who they’re voting for,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing, but it is what it is. And we did very well in 2016.”