Kamala Harris Closing Gap with Key Group of Voters, Polls Show

With Election Day just two months away, Vice President Kamala Harris has started to make inroads among male voters.

The latest survey from The Economist and YouGov showed Harris trailing Donald Trump by just 1 percentage point among male voters (47 percent to 46 percent), the closest gap between them since she entered the race, according to the pollsters. The poll, conducted between September 1 and 3, is based on the responses of 1,544 adults nationwide.

In a similar poll released last week by the Economist/YouGov, the former president was winning male voters by 8 points over Harris (50 percent to 42 percent). While Trump has struggled to rally women voters, his support among male adults has remained fairly consistent throughout the election cycle, and experts have said that November’s election could result in one of the biggest gender gaps in U.S. political history.

But Trump’s lead with the key voting bloc could be slipping. In a poll from Redfield & Wilton Strategies released on September 2, Harris was tied with Trump among male voters, at 44 percent. That survey was based on the responses of 2,500 U.S. adults nationwide.

A poll from Suffolk University and USA Today, released Wednesday, found Harris is still trailing the former president by 13 percentage points among male voters (51 percent to 38 percent). But the results, based on the responses of 1,000 likely voters between August 25 and 28, show an improvement for the Democratic Party. In a similar poll conducted in early July, then-candidate President Joe Biden was trailing Trump by 19 percentage points (49 percent to 30 percent).

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s and Harris’ campaigns via email for comment.

Male and female voters have traditionally diverged in their support for political parties, with Democrats often winning more women voters, compared with their Republican opponents. But with voters’ heightened concerns about reproductive rights in recent election years, the gender gap has widened.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released at the beginning of August found a significant gender gap between the candidates in three key states. While Harris was winning women voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 21 points, Trump was up among male voters by 14 points.

Melissa Deckman, the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, previously told Newsweek, “We may have a larger-than-normal gender gap in 2024” and specifically highlighted the patterns already being formed among younger voters.

“Gen Z women are far more liberal than Gen Z men,” Deckman said.

Both Trump’s and Harris’ campaigns have tailored their messaging to motivate Gen Z voters in November. While Harris has focused on keeping up with social media trends, the former president has sat down with several well-known internet personalities who are popular among younger male viewers.