While Democrats have gone through a month of anxiety about their electoral chances in the presidential race, it appears substituting Kamala Harris for Joe Biden atop the ticket hasn’t hurt the incumbent party at all.
At least that’s the takeaway from two new national surveys dropped Thursday showing the race with Donald Trump is too close to call.
The New York Times-Siena College sampling of 1,142 likely voters shows the Republican nominee with a marginal lead over the Democratic vice president — 48% to 47% with leaners factored in — and giving every indication the race for the White House could have a photo finish in November.
The NYT-Siena survey shows that both Trump and Harris command intraparty loyalty, with 93% of Republicans and Democrats saying they’re behind their party’s standard bearer.
Harris has a slight edge with independent voters in a two-way race, with 47% backing the veep, 45% behind Trump and 7% up for grabs.
When the field is expanded to include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other marginal candidates like Libertarian Chase Oliver, the Green Party’s Jill Stein and independent Cornel West, the Siena survey is more sterling still for Harris.
She leads Trump 44% to 43% in that expanded field, with the support of 89% of Democrats, 70% of black voters, 52% of Hispanic voters, and 51% of women.
While she doesn’t have a majority of independents, with 41% backing her in the larger field many voters will see on their ballots this fall, she’s 4 points ahead of Trump with that subgroup.
The poll evenly sampled Republicans and Democrats, at 33% each, with independents 29% of the participants.
In another poll of 1,170 registered voters, which YouGov and the Times of London conducted after Biden withdrew from the race but before his Wednesday night address from the Oval Office, the race is also too close to call.
Trump leads Harris by just 2 points, 46% to 44%, with the marginal candidates shedding vote share as seems to happen every four years. Kennedy is at a lowly 4% in this sample, with Stein at 1% and the hapless Cornel West mired at 0%.
As poll watchers know, there are key differences between registered voter and likely voter models, but some things remain the same.
Even those surveyed who don’t claim to be fully committed to voting are loyal to their party’s picks, with 92% of Republicans backing Trump and 91% of Democrats behind Harris.
Independents in this poll skew toward Trump, meanwhile, but not overwhelmingly: 45% to 37%, with Kennedy taking 8% of unaligned voters, Stein 2% and West 1%.
Gender splits take center stage here also, with 54% of men backing Trump and 51% of women supporting Harris. Democrats have been messaging heavily on reproductive rights since the 2022 Dobbs decision, which Harris and others blame Trump for, given that his three Supreme Court picks drove the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Expect messaging along these lines through Election Day from the Harris team.
While Trump has 54% support among white voters, the YouGov/Times of London poll nonetheless suggests his won’t be a rainbow coalition.
Only 12% of black voters back the former president, with 72% on side for Harris. Trump has spent some time this cycle trying to juice the African-American vote, but those efforts haven’t paid off in this survey.
Hispanic voters are leaning Harris here also, 44% to 40%. Against Biden in many polls, Trump ran even or was actually ahead.
But this is a new presidential race. And it’s anyone’s guess who will prevail.