Harris losing ground to Trump in US presidential election, polls suggest
Kamala Harris is losing ground to Donald Trump with less than a month to go until the election for president of the United States, a series of polls suggest.
Harris’s lead over Trump has narrowed or vanished outright as the race for the White House approaches the final stretch, according to three polls released on Sunday.
In the latest NBC News poll, the Democratic and Republican nominees are tied nationally at 48 percent ahead of the November 5 vote, a turnaround from a five-point lead for Harris in the same survey last month.
In the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, Harris leads 50 percent to 48 percent among likely voters. The Democrat led 52 percent to 46 percent in the same poll last month.
The latest CBS News/YouGov poll shows Harris up 51 percent to 48 percent among likely voters, compared with a four-point advantage last month.
Following the latest figures, Harris holds a 1.4 percent point lead in Real Clear Polling’s aggregate of major polls, slipping from 2.2 percent on Saturday.
The tightening poll numbers come amid concerns among Democrats that Harris is failing to shore up support among Hispanics and African Americans, two of the party’s key constituencies.
While Harris is leading among women of all races, she has struggled to drum up enthusiasm among men, including African Americans and Hispanics, who have increasingly gravitated towards Trump in recent years.
In The New York Times/Siena College polls released on Saturday and Sunday, Harris attracted the support of 78 percent of Black voters and 56 percent of Hispanic voters – significantly lower shares than won by the Democratic nominees in the 2020 and 2016 elections.
On Thursday, former President Barack Obama admonished Black men for not showing as much enthusiasm for Harris’s candidacy as he had received during his campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that,” Obama said at a campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of seven key battleground states expected to decide the election.
“Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
Harris and Trump on Sunday continued to focus their campaigns on the battleground states, holding events in North Carolina and Arizona, respectively.
At a campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, Harris took aim at Trump for spreading misinformation about the government’s response to recent hurricanes.
“The problem with this, beyond the obvious, is it’s making it harder, then, to get people life-saving information if they’re led to believe they cannot trust,” Harris said.
“And that’s the pain of it all, which is the idea that those who are in need have somehow been convinced that the forces are working against them in a way that they would not seek aid.”
Trump, meanwhile, used a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona to call for the hiring of 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents.
“After I win, I will be asking Congress immediately to approve a 10 percent raise – they haven’t had one in a long time – for all agents and a $10,000 each retention and signing bonus,” Trump said. “We’re going to retain them.”
