Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump in three crucial battleground states, according to new surveys by The New York Times and Siena College, the latest indication of a dramatic reversal in standing for Democrats after President Joe Biden’s departure from the presidential race remade it.
Harris is ahead of Trump by 4 percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50% to 46% among likely voters in each state. The surveys were conducted from Aug. 5-9.
The polls, some of the first high-quality surveys in those states since Biden announced he would no longer run for reelection, come after nearly a year of surveys that showed either a tied contest or a slight lead for Trump over Biden.
While the reshaped race is still in its volatile early weeks, Democrats are now in a notably stronger position in these three battleground states that have long been key to the party’s victories — or defeats. Still, the results show vulnerabilities for Harris. Voters prefer Trump when it comes to whom they trust to handle the economy and immigration, issues that remain central to the presidential race.
Harris’ numbers are an upswing for Democrats from Biden’s performance in those states, even before his much-maligned debate showing that destabilized his candidacy. In May, Biden was virtually tied with Trump in Times/Siena polling in Wisconsin and Michigan. Polling conducted before and after the debate in July showed Trump with a narrow lead in Pennsylvania.
Much of the newfound Democratic strength stems from improved voter perceptions of Harris. Her favorability rating has increased 10 percentage points among registered voters in Pennsylvania just in the past month, according to Times/Siena polling. Voters also view Harris as more intelligent and more temperamentally fit to govern than Trump.
Les Lanser, a retiree from Holland, Michigan, who typically votes Republican, said he was considering backing Harris in November. While he disagrees with some Democratic policies, he said he could not stand Trump’s “disrespectful” and “unacceptable” attitude.
“Some of her character is real appealing to me. I’m not so sure I agree with a lot of her policies,” said Lanser, 89, who regrets supporting Trump in 2016. “But the alternative is just not acceptable at all in my mind — because character is everything.”
The polls offer an early snapshot of a race that was transformed in little more than two weeks. The whirlwind of political change seized the nation’s attention and reinvigorated some voters who were approaching the rematch between Biden and Trump with a deep sense of dread.
It is unclear how much of Harris’ bounce in the polls stems from the heightened excitement surrounding her ascension to the top of the ticket, or whether that momentum will last. Candidates traditionally gain a few percentage points in the days and weeks after announcing their running mates. Harris announced her selection of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Tuesday, as voters were responding to the Times/Siena surveys in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Still, there is little doubt that replacing Biden on the ticket has turbocharged Democratic enthusiasm about the election. Among Democrats, voter satisfaction with their choice of candidates has skyrocketed since Harris entered the race, up 27 percentage points in the three swing states since May, according to the latest Times/Siena results. Democrats are now more likely to say they are satisfied with their candidate choices than Republicans, a reversal from three months ago, when the question was last asked.
John Jordan, a Democratic voter from Croydon, Pennsylvania, praised Biden’s accomplishments as president and said he would have voted for him again in November. But his friends and family are way more “pumped up” to support Harris, he said.
“I believe that she is best suited to move this country forward,” said Jordan, 60, who works as a charter school administrator. “I’ll also take it one step further to say, I’m very proud to be part of this historic moment and to hope that, yes, she does become the first African American slash Asian woman to be in the White House. I think that this is just such an exciting time and an exciting moment.”
In the three battlegrounds, Harris is in a stronger position than Biden was in May with most demographic groups, including white voters without a college degree. She is faring better with key parts of the Democratic Party’s coalition that had begun to erode under Biden, most notably Black and young voters. But she also appears to be holding on to older voters, who were some of the president’s most ardent supporters.
The share of voters who said they trusted Harris to handle economic issues was higher than the share Biden received in May, though she is still 9 points behind Trump on an issue where the Republican nominee has long held the advantage. And she has a 24-percentage-point advantage when it comes to whom voters trust to handle abortion, an issue considered one of the strongest for Democrats — in May, Biden held a 13-percentage-point advantage on abortion.
Trump’s attacks on Harris as “not smart” and “incompetent” have not landed with most voters. Nearly two-thirds of voters see Harris as intelligent, more than say the same about Trump. A majority of white voters without a college degree — a demographic that typically favors Republicans — said Harris was “intelligent.”
But the polls also indicate clear vulnerabilities for the new Democratic presidential nominee. They found that 42% of voters said Harris was too liberal; 37% said the same about Biden last October. Trump and his campaign have tried to define Harris as a left-wing extremist from deep blue San Francisco who is out of touch with swing-state voters.
In recent days, Harris has disavowed some of her previous stances on issues including border enforcement and fracking, as well as her support for a single-payer health care system.
Jonathan Ball, a floor installer from Jackson, Michigan, said he believed Trump would do more to help working Americans than Harris.
“I think she’s more liberal. I just don’t think she’s all for the middle class,” said Ball, 46, who plans to support Trump for a third time this fall. “I just see her one-sided. You know, for the rich.”
The changes to the Democratic ticket have not altered the issues at the heart of the race. Voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania still rank the economy, abortion and immigration as their top concerns. Trump still leads on the economy and immigration, while Harris is more trusted to handle abortion and democracy.
As is often the case in times of economic uncertainty, many voters are looking to back a candidate who represents change. Trump still holds the mantle of the “change” candidate in the race, though Harris appears to have made inroads from Biden’s previous standing. Voters are now about equally likely to say that either Trump or Harris would bring about the right kind of change, according to the latest Times/Siena surveys.
Beyond views of Trump, the polls captured mixed feelings about his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. Vance had a rocky debut on the campaign trail after a number of past comments drew fresh scrutiny, including a remark in 2021 that the United States was being run by “childless cat ladies” like Harris.
Across all three states, Vance is viewed broadly unfavorably by independent voters: About one-third said they were dissatisfied, and another 17% described themselves as “angry” about his selection. Strikingly, he receives lukewarm support from a notable number of Republican voters. While 43% said they were excited about their vice-presidential nominee, 38% said they were satisfied but not enthusiastic.
Walz, by comparison, received higher marks within his own party. In Pennsylvania, the only state where the poll was taken entirely after Walz was announced as Harris’ running mate, 48% of Democrats said they were excited about the vice presidential nominee. (In Wisconsin and Michigan, some interviews were completed before Harris announced that she had chosen Walz.)
Barbara Kampa, a two-time Trump voter from Greendale, Wisconsin, said she was shocked when she first heard Vance on the campaign trial.
“I was like, oh, holy crap. I don’t know how to say it nicely, but holy crap,” said Kampa, 64, who is retired and plans to vote again for Trump. “He needs to be sat down and told, ‘Well, this is how we approach things for us to get people to vote for us.’ You can’t go out there like it’s the Wild West and start shooting. That turns people off.”
The new polls also included crucial Senate races in the three swing states. Democrats hold a slight edge among likely voters in Michigan and larger leads in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
As recently as a few months ago, Democratic Senate candidates were running far ahead of Biden, a sign of the president’s weakness. Harris, by comparison, is running roughly on par with her party’s Senate contenders in the three states.
How The Poll Was Conducted
Here are the key things to know about these Times/Siena polls:
— Interviewers spoke with 619 registered voters in Michigan and 661 registered voters in Wisconsin from Aug. 5-8, and 693 registered voters in Pennsylvania from Aug. 6-9.
— Times/Siena polls are conducted by telephone, using live interviewers, in both English and Spanish. About 90% of respondents were contacted on a cellphone for these polls.
—Voters are selected for Times/Siena surveys from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For this poll, interviewers placed more than 237,000 calls to nearly 118,000 voters.
— To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, such as people without a college degree.
— The margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points in Michigan, plus or minus 4 percentage points in Pennsylvania, and plus or minus 4.3 percentage points in Wisconsin. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. When computing the difference between two values — such as a candidate’s lead in a race — the margin of error is twice as large.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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