Who is leading in the polls?

Kamala Harris has momentum, but she is still locked in a virtual dead heat with Donald Trump in most polls of the 2024 presidential race. Harris "overwhelmingly impressed" voters in her September debate with Trump, said The New York Times: Two-thirds of respondents say she did well in the encounter. But the paper's latest poll — conducted with The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College — shows she has failed to take a "decisive advantage" in the race: The two candidates are deadlocked overall. 

One place where Harris does have an edge? Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, where she holds a four-point lead. It is "surprising," said the Times, that Harris' numbers are "stronger in Pennsylvania" than they are nationally. Other polls see a closer race than that. Harris and Trump are "essentially tied" in Pennsylvania, said The Washington Post. The Post's poll shows Harris gets backing from 48% of Keystone State voters, while Trump weighs in at 47%. That's no shock: "Pennsylvania has been narrowly divided every time Trump has been on the ballot," the Post said. Something to note: Pennsylvania voters "widely say Harris won" the debate.

A 'new record' for Harris

At least one poll sees a bigger separation between Trump and Harris. The Morning Consult survey shows that Harris has opened-up a six-point lead over the former president, Axios said. That result is a "new record" for Harris in the poll, which shows the Democrat trending strongly with "Democrats, Biden 2020 voters, liberals, women, 18- to 34-year-olds and millennials." Both camps are "courting young voters," and Morning Consult's poll shows that group remains full of "undecideds and persuadables."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The most recent poll from Fox News also shows Harris with a small advantage. Trump had a one-point advantage in mid-August; Harris now leads by two points. The conservative TV network's polling shows that Harris does well with respondents who say she'll help the middle class. "Hispanics and independents swing in her direction" as well. Those groups show the biggest swings — Trump earlier led among Hispanics by six points and now he is losing by 12. Independents also favored Trump last month; those voters also "now prefer Harris by 12."

'Don't relax for a moment'

"We don't know if this is going to rank with the closest presidential elections ever," Ed Kilgore said at New York magazine. But it probably is among the "most unpredictable." That's true even though the contest seems impervious to "game-changing" moments: "The polls show two huge and roughly equal voter coalitions with a lot of stability," added Kilgore. That's true in battleground states, where the surveys reveal a "close, tense competition." Kilgore's advice? "Don't relax for a moment."

And be ready for strange outcomes. Polling guru Nate Silver's model shows Harris winning "by almost three full percentage points, 48.9% to 46%," said USA Today. It also shows she has a 25% chance of winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College to Trump. "Needless to say," Silver said at his Substack newsletter, "stranger things have happened than a candidate who was behind in the polls winning."