Donald Trump erases deficit against Kamala Harris in final pre-election Post poll
Republican Donald Trump has pulled into a virtual tie with Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the final poll commissioned by The Post ahead of Tuesday’s election — erasing a 4 percentage-point deficit as the race entered October.
The survey by Leger found Trump, 78, and Harris, 60, each receiving 49% support among likely voters, with the remaining 2% saying they would back another candidate.
Harris has lost two points of support from the Oct. 1 Leger poll for The Post, which showed her leading the 45th president 51% to 47% among likely voters.
The narrow margin suggests a victory for Trump in the all-important Electoral College. In 2016, the Republican nominee defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points — and most polls indicate an even closer race in the raw vote total this time around.
While most polls have shown a gender gap in the race between Trump and Harris, the Leger survey shows a wide age difference in support of the two major-party nominees.
Among voters 18 to 34, Harris leads Trump by 20 percentage points (59%-39%), while Trump leads by 14Â (56%-42%)Â among those 55 and older, who tend to make up a larger slice of the electorate.
Trump leads Harris by five percentage points among men (51%-46%), while Harris has a seven-point edge among women (53%-46%).
Both candidates will end their campaigns underwater with the American public in terms of favorability, though Trump’s net unfavorability rating of negative-3 (45% favorable, 48% unfavorable) is by far the best of his three runs for the White House. In 2020, the Republican nominee’s favorability was negative-12 and was negative-27 four years earlier in 2016.
Harris has a net favorability of negative-1 (43% favorable, 44% unfavorable), with a surprising 13% saying they either were unsure what they thought of the vice president or didn’t know enough to give her a rating.
Trump also benefits by comparison with his successor, President Biden. Nearly half of respondents (48%) said the 45th president’s term of office was better for them personally, while just 37% said they were better off under Biden’s presidency.
However, Trump’s advantage over Harris on the issue of the economy has narrowed, with 45% saying the Republican nominee had laid out the clearest plan on the issue and 42% saying Harris had.
Respondents were deadlocked on the question of which candidate is most likely to improve Americans’ quality of life, with 44% saying Trump and 44% saying Harris.
When asked to give two reasons why they were supporting Trump, 58% of Republican voters said they were doing so because Americans were better off under the former president. Three in 10 GOP voters said they were voting Trump because they thought he would be best for reviving the economy, and just over a quarter (26%) said they were doing so because they wanted him to prevent more illegal immigrants from entering the US and deport those already here illegally.
The Leger poll conducted for The Post surveyed 1,044 Americans online Oct. 31 to Nov. 3, including 950 likely voters. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
