A number of polls have been released in recent days offering new insights into the race for the White House.
Polls conducted in more than 20 battleground states following the September 10 debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump are now public.
Harris is widely seen as having beaten Trump in that match-up, but the question of how much her victory changed the race is much murkier.
Most of the latest polls were not conducted recently enough to encompass the reaction to the second attempted assassination attempt on President Trump, which took place Sunday at his West Palm Beach golf club.
Here are some key findings from the latest poll:
Harris is slightly better than Trump.
Overall, the Harris campaign appears to be more pleased with the latest polling than the Trump campaign.
Nationally, polls show Harris slightly widening her lead over the former president: A Morning Consult poll gives her a 6-point lead, the largest lead the organization has seen so far, while ABC News/Ipsos and Yahoo! News/YouGov polls give her leads of 4 and 5 points, respectively.
There were some eye-opening results for Harris in battleground states, but they were the exception rather than the rule.
The vice president's campaign would be pleased if reliable polls showed her with a 5-point lead in Pennsylvania, as the Quinnipiac University poll shows, and by the same margin in Michigan, as the Marist College poll of likely voters shows.
Projections maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) give Harris a 55% chance of winning in November.
It's important not to overstate the significance of these numbers, which point to a very legitimate race, but whatever momentum there is, it seems to be in Harris' favor.
Trump gives plenty of reason for hope
Trump and his supporters need not be too disheartened by the latest poll results.
While there appears to be a slight uptick in support for Harris overall, it's far from conclusive: the debate may have given the vice president a point or two in favor, but it's not enough to change the course of the race.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday showed the two candidates neck and neck among voters nationwide, with Trump leading by one point among all registered voters. A Fox News poll showed Harris leading by a slim two-point margin in both categories.
The Trump campaign will also be encouraged by several polls in battleground states, including a series of polls from The Hill and Emerson College.
The Emerson poll gives Trump one-point leads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, suggesting the former president could again break through large parts of the Democratic “blue wall.” The Emerson poll also gives Trump a three-point lead in Georgia and a one-point lead in Arizona, both states won by President Biden in 2020.
Meanwhile, a Marist College poll in Pennsylvania shows the race is tied in the state, in stark contrast to Quinnipiac University and New York Times/Siena College polls that show Harris leading by 5 and 4 points, respectively.
It's hard to distinguish between signal and noise
Pollsters and political scientists naturally dislike their poll results being treated as conclusive down to the last decimal point.
Polls on any subject are subject to error and are subject to “noise” – numbers that change because of variables inherent to the polling process rather than because of actual changes in public opinion.
A series of recent polls have contained some surprising results.
For example, a New York Times/Siena College poll showed Harris leading by four points in Pennsylvania but tied with Trump nationally.
This finding is at odds with recent history.
Biden won the national popular vote by more than 4 percentage points in 2020 but won Pennsylvania by just over 1 percentage point. In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by about 0.7 percentage points but lost the national vote to Hillary Clinton by about 2 percentage points.
There are other results that seem at least somewhat unusual.
For example, the latest Quinnipiac University poll shows Harris leading by a much narrower margin in Wisconsin (1 point) than she does in Michigan (5 points) or Pennsylvania (5 points), even though The Hill/DDHQ polling average shows her with a larger lead in the Badger State.
Again, results like this do not undermine the credibility of any polling agency; they simply highlight that it is an inexact science.
In the end, it's like a coin toss.
With less than 50 days left in such a close and fierce election, every poll will be scrutinized closely.
But no matter how much you read into the polls, the 2024 election is essentially a coin toss.
The Hill/DDHQ polling averages in key states tell the story: Harris leads by about one point in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada, and by two points in Wisconsin. In the other three battleground states, her lead is just one point.
Many factors could change that situation, including the millions of dollars each campaign is spending on television advertising, Trump's tendency to outperform the polls or the possibility that female Democratic candidates could benefit from a surge in support in the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Polls tell us the best issues for either side.
The contours of this year's race have remained fairly consistent, at least since Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee.
The abortion issue is clearly the most powerful electoral card the Democrats have in their pocket.
For example, a New York Times/Siena College poll showed Harris leading by 13 points among voters who said which candidate was more trusted on the issue of abortion.
Electoral-wise, immigration is just as emotive an issue in favor of Republicans as abortion, and Trump held a 12-point lead on the issue in the Times poll.
Perhaps most crucially, the Times poll on the economy gave Trump a 13-point lead, broadly in line with other surveys showing the former president leading on economic issues that often rank high on voters' concerns.
