BOSTON — Vice President Kamala Harris has engineered an eight-point turnaround in the race for president by overtaking former President Donald Trump, according to a new Suffolk University/USA TODAY national poll of likely voters for president taken immediately after the Democratic National Convention.
Among likely voters, Harris (47.6%) led Trump (43.3%) with independent Cornel West (1.5%), Green Party Jill Stein (1.2%), and Libertarian Chase Oliver (0.7%) following, with 4.8% undecided.
Harris’ four-point lead reverses a nearly four-point Trump lead from a June poll taken right after the Biden-Trump debate, in which Trump led Biden 41.4%–37.5%, with independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receiving 8.2%. Kennedy has since dropped out and endorsed Trump. When voters of third-party candidates were asked their second choice, 32% of those surveyed said Harris, 24% West and 15% Trump.
“With the ‘Brat Summer’ of Kamala Harris memes and emojis winding down, young people, persons of color, and low-income households have swung dramatically toward the vice president,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
“These same demographics were emphasized and woven together by numerous speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.”
Though Harris improved in many categories, there were four standout demographics that represented swings of over 15 points away from Trump and toward Harris:
In 2020, Biden won by +85 points among Black voters to win the Electoral College, a margin which Harris has not been able to win as of yet, due to a small fraction of young Black men who are holding back support for Harris or even voting for Trump.
Methodology
The nationwide Suffolk University/USA TODAY survey was conducted August 25-28, through live interviews of 1,000 registered voters, residing in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Quota and demographic information—including region, race, and age—were determined from 2020 national census data and exit polling from similar elections. States were grouped into four general regions. Surveys were administered in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is +/-3.1 percentage points.
Donald Trump is scheduled on September 18 to be sentenced in his New York fraud case after being found guilty on 34 charges of falsifying business records in his sad attempt to influence the 2016 election, which he lost by millions of votes.