Harris regains slight lead nationally, but Electoral College holds cards: poll

Vice President Kamala Harris has regained a slight lead among likely voters nationwide, but the outcome of the 2024 presidential election is left largely dependent on the uncertainty of the Electoral College, according to the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll. It’s a close battle.

Voter turnout is key. Harris and Donald Trump share just 2 percentage points among all registered voters, at 49% to 47%. This gives Harris a slight advantage among likely voters, between 51% and 47%, with some pro-Harris voters showing a tendency to vote a little more.

Compared to earlier this month, Harris has regained a more conventional Democratic advantage among Hispanics and widened her lead among suburban women, while still holding strong in core demographics, including blacks. is maintained. Mr. Trump is repulsed by rural and non-college white men, and is competitive among young men.

See PDF for complete results.

problem

Candidates split the pie of trust to address the issues that matter most. Trump’s best areas include immigration, where he holds a 12-point lead over Harris among registered voters. Overall economy, +8 points. Inflation, +7; Middle East conflict also +7. Harris has double-digit leads at trusts that handle abortion (+15) and health care (+10). She also has an 8-point lead on credibility for “protecting American democracy” and a +6-point lead on support for the middle class.

The economy and inflation remain prominent concerns, with 90% and 85% of registered voters, respectively, considering these to be very important in their vote. But this poll, produced for the ABC by Langer Research Associates and fielded by Ipsos, shows a shift in intensity. Stock prices with the economy and inflation ranked top of the poll as “one of the most important issues” have each fallen by 7 points since September.

A shift away from economic concerns is likely to help Harris, given the lack of confidence in addressing the issue and dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s economic performance. President Joe Biden is struggling with an employment approval rating of just 36%. For Harris, it was a challenge to differentiate himself. Among registered voters who approve of Biden’s performance, his approval rating is 95%, compared with 16% among the majority who disapprove.

Notably, protecting democracy is also almost as important as inflation, cited by 81%. This far outweighs the importance of immigration, which Trump has railed against, and abortion, which is a central focus of Harris. But they reflect partisan realities. Democrats are far more likely than other parties to make abortion a top issue. Republicans choose immigration.

attribute

Although they fight on the issues, Ms. Harris continues to lead Mr. Trump on most personal traits. In a direct assessment, Harris leads Trump by 11 points (49% to 38%) in being seen as having the necessary mental acuity to effectively serve as president. There is. By this measure, Trump had a 31-point lead over Biden.

Having the strength to serve effectively increased Harris’ advantage to 29 points. She is also 15 points more likely to be seen as honest and trustworthy than Trump. Understand 10 points of problems of people like you. Share your personal values ​​(8 point difference).

That said, there remain personal qualities that put Mr. Trump on an essentially even footing with Ms. Harris, and that could be important in an unstable world. It’s about being trusted in a crisis. On this point, 43% chose Harris and 41% chose Trump.

This is not the only difference in how candidates’ attributes are viewed. According to Friday’s report, registered voters are twice as likely to call Trump a fascist than they are to say this about Harris, and 16 points more likely to think Trump often says things that aren’t true. But they are also 5 points more likely to think that Harris, not Trump, is making the proposal just to get votes and that she has no intention of carrying it out.

voter group

Eight percent of adults (and 10 percent of registered voters) say they have already voted (as of early last week). Although a disproportionately Democratic group, they supported Harris 62% to 33%.

The poll found a notable shift in voting preferences among Hispanics, who make up 12% of likely voters and are a potentially important group, especially given the close races in battleground states Arizona and Nevada. It turned out that. According to ABC News exit polls, Biden carried Hispanics by 33 points in 2020, and Harris currently leads that group by 30 points, 64% to 34% (10%). 55-43% at the beginning of the month).

Trump has offset some of Harris’ support among Hispanics. He currently sits at +41 points among white men without a college degree, roughly matching his ranking among this group in the 2020 ABC News exit poll, and among rural voters. The average score is +41 points.

Additionally, men under 40 gave Harris +6 points earlier this month. Trump supporters are currently at +5. This change is not statistically significant, nor is the difference between the candidates, given the sample size. Nevertheless, this result stands in sharp contrast to the preferences of women under 40, who favor Harris by a 34-point margin.

Among men overall, Mr. Trump has a slight +6, and among women, Ms. Harris has a +14, which is almost exactly the average gender gap in presidential elections since 1996. That includes a 19-point lead among suburban women, compared to her narrow 10-point lead. She had joined the group in early October.

The long-standing gender gap in presidential approval ratings reflects the fact that women are more likely to be Democrats than men, with a 13-point difference among likely voters in this poll. . This is reflected in issue importance, with women more likely than men to choose both abortion and health care as top issues in their voting choices by a double-digit margin.

Many of these results across groups are similar to the 2020 exit poll results. One difference is that Ms. Harris outperformed Mr. Biden four years ago among college-educated white women. She is the strongest of all college graduate players.

But there’s another difference that matters to Trump. Among independents, she is basically on par with Harris, a group that Biden won by a 13-point margin in 2020, but now Harris has +1 point less. Winning independent candidates have won nine of the past 12 presidential elections.

erase

Overall voting preferences are essentially even between the general population (Harris +1) and registered voters (Harris +2). As mentioned above, this is slightly closer to Harris +4 among likely voters.

The shift toward Harris among likely voters relies, in part, on strengthening support among Democratic voters, particularly blacks and liberals. Harris has a 70-point lead among blacks overall, but that increases to 83 points among likely black voters (90-7%). 96% of likely liberal voters support Harris, compared to 91% of liberals overall. Additionally, her approval rating rose from 53% among suburban women overall to 59% among likely voters. Mr. Trump, by contrast, does not expect his approval ratings to increase significantly among likely voters.

Determining who is likely to vote requires estimation, and it is a moving target as campaigns work over time to increase turnout for candidates and decrease turnout for their opponents. It may become.

As a potential indicator of turnout, both candidates are close in voter enthusiasm. 88% of Harris supporters are enthusiastic about her, and 85% of Trump supporters are also enthusiastic about her. In another article, Harris maintained a slight advantage in voter contact, with Americans overall 5 percentage points more likely to be contacted by her campaign than Trump. However, winning four points in seven battleground states is no big deal, and a 50-47% contest there is still a dead heat.

methodology

This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted in a national random sample of 2,808 adults, including 2,392 registered voters and 1,913 likely voters, from October 18-22, 2024 via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel®. The survey was conducted online in English and Spanish. The partisan split among all adults is 29-29-30% among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. 32-32-29% among registered voters. and 35-35-27% among likely voters.

Results have a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points, including design effects, for the entire sample and registered voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Sampling error is not the only cause of poll differences.

The survey was created for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. Learn more about ABC News’ research methodology.