Former President Donald Trump is gaining ground on Vice President Kamala Harris less than a week before the presidential candidates are set to tangle in their first debate, according to results of a new poll.
A national poll released by Emerson College on Thursday shows that Harris is preferred by 49.4 percent of likely voters, while Trump is favored by 46.9 percent. In an iteration of the same poll released on August 15, Harris was leading Trump by 49.8 percent to 45.5 percent.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement that the race replicates the polling picture of the 2020 presidential election between Trump and President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21.
“The 2024 presidential race currently mirrors 2020, with the Democratic lead narrowing from four points to two in national polls,” Kimball said. “In 2020, Biden re-established his four-point lead in late September ahead of the first debate; now, we’ll see what impact the debate has on the trajectory of this race.”
Kevin Dietsch
Trump and Harris are scheduled to face off in person for the first time on Tuesday in a debate hosted by ABC News. The event was initially scheduled as a debate between Trump and Biden.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email on Thursday.
While the former president is narrowing the gap on Harris after a strong period for the Democratic ticket, the new poll also finds that the 2.5 percent of voters who are undecided now lean toward Harris by a wide margin, 73.2 percent to 26.8 percent.
In the August poll, a larger group of 4.7 percent of voters were undecided and leaned toward Harris by the significantly smaller margin of 54.6 percent to 45.4 percent.
The change between polls suggests that while most voters have already made up their minds, Harris may be more likely to win the support of a large number of those who remain undecided.
The new poll was conducted among 1,000 likely voters over the phone and online on September 3 and September 4. It has a credibility interval, a measure similar to a margin of error, of 3 percent. The August poll also had a 3 percent credibility interval.
Most other national polls continue to show Harris with an advantage over Trump heading into the debate. An average of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight found Harris with a 3.2 percent edge as of Thursday.
In seven critical swing states, where the election’s outcome will likely be decided, the candidates remain neck-and-neck.
FiveThirtyEight averages show Harris with small leads over Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia as of Thursday, while Trump is leading by small margins in Arizona and North Carolina.