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Here’s How Kamala Harris Performs In Polls Against Trump—As Biden Drops Out And Endorses Harris
Molly Bohannon has been a Forbes news reporter since 2023.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the most likely replacement for President Joe Biden, who dropped his 2024 presidential bid and endorsed Harris Sunday—and she is performing about the same as Biden in head-to-head polls with Trump.
A flurry of polls conducted in the wake of the June 27 presidential debate showed Harris performing roughly the same as Biden against Trump (who has been leading the president by a slim margin for months), and more recent polls after the attempted assassination of Trump show similar trends.
Harris has also polled better than other Democrats commonly floated as replacement candidates to Biden, but the polls didn’t factor in how months of campaigning could change voters’ perceptions of many of the lesser-known candidates that don’t have the benefit of national name recognition like Harris does.
One CBS News/YouGov poll conducted last week gave Harris a slight edge: Trump led Harris by three points (51%-48%), while leading Biden by five (52%-47%) among likely voters (the poll’s margin of error was 2.7 points).
However, an Economist/YouGov poll (margin of error 3.1) conducted July 13 – 16 and released Thursday found Biden would lose to Trump 41% to 43%, while Harris would perform slightly worse, losing to Trump 39% to 44%.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted and released Tuesday—after the attempted assassination of Trump—found both Biden and Harris are virtually statistically tied with Trump, but 69% of respondents see Biden as too old to work in government (margin of error 3.1).
Democratic polling firm Bendixen & Amandi found Harris beating the former president 42% to 41% (margin of error 3.1) in a survey released July 9 and first obtained by Politico, while Biden, Whitmer and Newsom all trail Trump.
A YouGov poll conducted July 3-6 found more Democrats and independents who lean Democrat prefer Biden over Harris as the nominee, 47% to 32%, while 21% said they weren’t sure (margin of error 4).
A Five Thirty Eight analysis of polls found Harris’ odds of winning the Electoral College over Trump are slightly better than Biden’s (38% versus 35%), but when various economic and political factors are incorporated, in addition to polls, Five Thirty Eight found Biden’s odds of winning swing states and the Electoral College against Trump are better than Harris’—48% to 31%.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released July 2 (margin of error 3.5) found Harris would lose to Trump by one point, Biden tied Trump, while four governors who have been floated as potential Biden replacements—Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker—would all perform worse than both Biden and Harris against Trump.
In a CNN/SSRS poll (margin of error 3.5) conducted June 28-30, Harris outperformed Biden, and three other potential candidates commonly floated to replace him, in a hypothetical matchup against Trump—but she would still lose to the former president by two points (while Biden would lose to Trump by six points).
