The poll finds Harris rising to challenge Trump on change

Follow Trump, Harris and their latest updates 2024 election.

With Ms. Harris in the race for the White House by a slim margin nationally, Donald J. A recent New York Times report says voters appreciate Vice President Kamala Harris more than Trump who represents change and cares about people like them. /Siena College poll.

It was the first time Ms. Harris led Mr. Trump in the Times/Sienna poll since July, when President Biden dropped out of the race and Democrats rallied behind Ms. Harris to replace him. It comes as the tournament moves into its final month, and the polls from the battleground states will be one of the closest in modern history.

A Times/Siana poll by Mr. While showing some solid advantages for Trump, the results suggest Ms. Harris is making gains, albeit small, on questions of attitude, trust and change that are crucial in presidential elections.

In a poll of 3,385 voters conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6, Ms. Harris led Republican Mr. Trump 49 percent to 46 percent, a lead slightly within the poll’s margin of error.

[Times/Siena polls also found Trump leading in Texas and up by a wide margin in Florida. The Florida poll helps clarify what’s happening in the race, Nate Cohn writes.]

Mr. Trump and Mrs. The Harrises were tied at 47 percent each in a Times/Sienna poll in mid-September, after the two candidates met in their first — and likely only — presidential debate.

Mrs. Harris has boosted his support among older voters and is beginning to make inroads among Republicans: 9 percent say they plan to support him, up from 5 percent last month. He appears to have closed the gap on the question of change, a key factor in an election in which voters have repeatedly told pollsters the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

Voted out of the White House in 2020, the 78-year-old Mr. Trump has positioned himself as an agent of change, and Mr. Mr. Biden continued to saddle Ms. Harris with unpopular parts of his record. But a Times/Siena poll found voters say Ms. Harris is the candidate who represents change in this election, 46 percent to 44 percent. The discovery was a first for Ms. Harris; In previous Times/Siena polls, Mr. Trump has been identified as a candidate for change.

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Ms. Harris, 59, was seen as a replacement candidate among non-white voters by a margin of 61 percent to 29 percent. Younger voters see him as an alternative candidate: 58 percent to 34 percent.

“The age difference between the two candidates makes a huge difference in the swing,” said Terry Knox, a 58-year-old Democrat from Memphis who said he intends to vote for Ms. Harris. “They see the world differently. They see the world differently, and they have different views of the world.

Mr. Trump was edged out as a strong leader, albeit by a narrow margin, which could prove crucial with the Middle East in turmoil.

But Ms. Harris, by a wide margin, was seen as more honest and trustworthy than Mr. Trump. And Ms. Harris, promoting videos and memes of her laughing, joking and dancing, was seen poking fun at the two candidates. The poll found that 43 percent of voters — and 13 percent — are RepublicansI thought Mrs. Harris was very funny.

But Mr. Trump has some clear advantages. He has an 11-point lead among male voters; He is Mr. He won by two points against Biden In 2020. 42 percent of the respondents said Mr. Mr. Trump’s policies have helped him personally, Mr.

More voters said they trusted Mr Trump than Ms Harris to manage a key area of ​​concern, the economy. (Abortion and immigration were a distant second.) The nation’s economic mood remains bleak — 75 percent of respondents said the economy is in fair or poor shape, the same as last month. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they cut back on groceries at some point in the past year because of cost.

“As a businessman, I think Trump can see the big picture and say, ‘Oh, maybe we can do this to help people,'” said Barbara Storcina, 65, a retired school secretary in Canton, Ohio. “I don’t feel like the Democrats and Harris care about the average person like me. They don’t care if we are struggling or if we need any help.

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But even on the critical question of who voters trust to handle their most pressing issue, Ms. Harris has made some small inroads: on that question Mr. Trump’s margin was just two points, 48 ​​percent to 46 percent, compared to five points in September. .

“I can’t believe Donald Trump,” said Rance Johnson, 54, a construction manager in Houston who doesn’t identify with a party and wants to vote for Ms. Harris. “He’s trying to get into office, and I think he wants to stay in office for his own gain.”

With economic concerns looming large, Ms. Harris was seen as helpful to “people like you” by 48 percent to 43 percent. He had a slightly narrower edge in who voters said would help them personally.

National polls are a good barometer of voters’ moods and attitudes. But those numbers aren’t necessarily indicative of the Electoral College outcome, which will be determined by battleground states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the elections are very close.

In a sign of how sharply aligned the nation’s presidential battleground has become in recent years, a Times/Sienna poll found Mr. Trump ahead by 13 percentage points in Florida, and six ahead of the Democratic presidential contenders. percentage points in Texas, a state Democrats had long hoped would turn blue.

However, nationally, the race remains close and remarkably stable. The percentage of voters with favorable or unfavorable views of either candidate has not changed since September. The group of undecided or undecided voters has shrunk slightly to 17 percent of voters, down from 20 percent in early September. When pressed on which candidate they favored, they were evenly split. The group met Mr. Slightly leaning towards Trump.

“I can’t vote for Trump,” said Elizabeth Mella, 64, a Republican from Utah who said she was leaning toward Ms. Harris. “Kamala is a decent person, she works hard, you know, I think I could be her friend. I don’t know that I agree with all the changes she wants to see.

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Christine Zhang Contributed report.


  • Florida has 622 voters and Texas has 617 voters in the national poll. The weight given to each of these groups in national polls is adjusted so that the overall results reflect the country as a whole.

  • The Times/Siena poll is conducted by telephone in both English and Spanish, using live interviewers. Overall, 98 percent of respondents contacted these polls by cell phone. Here you can find the exact questions asked and the order in which they were asked.

  • Voters are selected for the census from the list of registered voters. The list contains information about the demographic characteristics of each registered voter to ensure we reach the correct number of voters of each party, race and region. For these polls, interviewers made nearly 365,000 calls to nearly 150,000 voters.

  • To ensure that the results reflect the voting population as a whole, not just those who wish to take the poll, we give greater weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, such as those without a college degree. More information about the characteristics of the respondents and the weighted sample can be found at the bottom of the Results and Methods page, under “Sample Composition”.

  • A national poll can be plus or minus 2.4 points and each state poll can be plus or minus five points. Although, in theory, multiple challenges create additional sources of error, this means that most of the time the results should reflect the views of the population as a whole. When calculating the difference between two values, such as a candidate’s lead in a race, the margin of error is twice as large.

Full results and detailed methodology can be found here. If you’d like to read more about how and why we conduct our surveys, you can view answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here.

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