CBS has a new one and it shows that Harris has made up the ground Biden lost but it’s still looking like hand to hand combat… for now, anyway:
Boosted by Democrats, younger and Black voters becoming more engaged and likely to vote, and by women decidedly thinking she’d favor their interests more, Vice President Kamala Harris has reset the 2024 presidential race.
She has a 1-point edge nationally — something President Biden never had (he was down by 5 points when he left the race) — and Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied across the collective battleground states.
Looking ahead, voters are also defining why the next few weeks could be critical.
On one hand, Harris has additional edges with the wider electorate that Mr. Biden did not: she’s leading Trump on being seen as having the cognitive health to serve, a measure that was of course central to the campaign before Mr. Biden stepped aside.
And on policy generally, Harris is seen as a little different from Mr. Biden, opening some possibility of defining her stances for the electorate now, either way.
But to Trump’s advantage, some critical things have not changed: he keeps his sizable lead on voters saying they’ll be financially better off with him and that his policies would decrease migrants at the border.
The percentage of Democrats who say they’ll “definitely vote” has risen to its highest point this year. That narrows the partisan “turnout gap” we’ve seen throughout the campaign.
And today much higher numbers of Black voters say they’ll vote, compared to July when Mr. Biden was the nominee.
More generally, all this points to how the election might well hinge on turnout and specifically on marginal-turnout voter — those who don’t always show up to vote.
For example, among those who generally describe themselves as “sometimes” or “rarely” voting — but say they’ll definitely vote now — Harris is currently winning.
Related to this, the gender gap has widened some from earlier in the campaign. Harris leads Trump among women by a bigger margin than Mr. Biden had, while holding roughly the same support Mr. Biden had among men.
Most Democratic voters, and nearly half of voters overall, say that Harris as the Democratic nominee makes them feel more motivated to vote. (There is some countering effect, too: about a third of Trump voters are also more motivated to vote now that Harris is the nominee.)
It’s not just that Democrats are more excited, but also on a number of candidate qualities they feel they’ve gotten a candidate that can match up more closely with Trump.
Harris has an advantage over Trump on being seen as having the mental and cognitive health to serve, which was a critical deficit for Mr. Biden.
Black voters think Harris will look out for everyone, including Black people.
Republicans and Trump voters think Harris will help the interests of Black people more so than of White people; Harris’ voters think she’ll look out for everyone across gender and race lines.
Trump’s voters also think he’ll help the interests of everyone, though the wider electorate tends to think he’ll help the interests of men and White people more so than others.
