New poll shows Harris drawing level against Trump

A new poll confirmed yesterday that Kamala Harris – set to name her vice-presidential pick imminently – has drawn level with Donald Trump, transforming a White House race that the Republican had been increasingly confident he was going to win.
As the November 5 election rapidly approaches, Harris has erased the growing lead that Trump was building before President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid.
According to the CBS News/YouGov poll released yesterday, Harris has a 1% advantage on Trump nationwide – compared to Trump’s previous five-point edge on Biden.
In the swing states that decide the Electoral College contest in US elections, Harris and Trump – who shocked the world with his 2016 presidential victory but was beaten by Biden in 2020 – are equal.
These are considered good numbers for a Democratic candidate who parachuted into the race only last month, when Biden bowed to mounting concerns over his mental acuity and ability at 81 years old to serve a second term.
However, Harris, who is Biden’s vice-president and the first black and South Asian woman ever in the role, is in a sprint to define herself to voters before Trump does.
A big moment in that process will be when Harris announces her choice for running mate in a historic bid to become America’s first female president. This could happen as early as today.
Expectations are that Harris will pick a white man to balance the ticket – and likely a moderate Democrat who would help counterweigh attacks on Harris from Republicans that she is too far to the left.
The three figures seen as heading the short list – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona – were all visiting Harris in Washington yesterday, the Washington Post reported.
“It’s her first major decision that she’s making as an executive, so it tells you about her thought process,” Amy Walter, a polling expert from the Cook Political Report newsletter, told CBS News.
The CBS poll, which echoes numerous other surveys indicating rapid gains by Harris, shows that Trump is still favoured by voters on the key issue of the economy.
Only 25% said they expected to be better off financially if Harris wins, compared to 45% who said so about Trump.
However, when it comes to trust in the candidates’ temperament, the poll shows voters prefer the former California prosecutor to Trump, a convicted felon who has made a career out of publicly insulting those who oppose him – including while president.
The issue of cognitive health, which used to bedevil Biden, is now a liability for 78-year-old Trump, the poll found.
Only 51% of respondents thought Trump is mentally capable for the presidency, compared to 64% for Harris.
The Democrats believe that if you “make this referendum on Trump rather than a referendum on the current state of the economy, then we have a real opportunity to win”, Cook said.
Trump was riding high politically last month after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally, then using the Republican convention to highlight his image of vigour against the physically frail Biden.
However, with Biden’s dramatic exit and Harris’s fast start, he’s scrambling to recalibrate.
At a rally on Saturday in the swing state of Georgia, Trump called Harris a “Marxist” and a “radical left freak”, claiming that she would cause an “economic crash”.
On Wednesday, he shocked many when he told an audience of black journalists that Harris had “turned black” out of political expediency.
Where Biden often attacked Trump as a threat to democracy, given his unprecedented refusal to accept his loss in 2020, Harris’s team has honed a sharper – more meme-friendly – line built around branding Trump and his vice-presidential pick JD Vance “weird”.
On Saturday, the Harris campaign said Trump was “scared” to debate her after he turned down a previously scheduled televised debate on ABC, while saying that he’d be ready to debate her on Fox News – a network that has for years given him support.