While Democratic voters appear to have supplanted President Biden at the top of their candidate lists, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are struggling in battleground states, a new poll shows.
An average of battleground states showed Trump and Harris each receiving 50% approval, and in head-to-head national races the vice president held a one-point lead over his Republican opponent. CBS News/YouGov Poll RevealsShe won 50% to Trump’s 49%.
The Republican Party has not won the national popular vote in a presidential election since 2004.
The results mark a stunning reversal from last month, when Trump held a 5-point lead over President Biden nationally and generally led in battleground states in a CBS News poll.
In the battleground states, Harris received 48% to Trump’s 48% in Michigan, while Pennsylvania (50%, 50%), Wisconsin (49%, 50%), Arizona (49%, 49%), Georgia (47%, 50%), Nevada (50%, 48%) and North Carolina (47%, 50%) were all statistically tied or close.
If the general election were decided that way, Trump would have a 261-232 lead in the Electoral College, still short of the 270 electoral votes needed for a candidate to win.
Harris’ rising support in the CBS poll appears to be due to women, young people and black voters flocking back to the Democratic Party.
A July poll by the outlet found that 58% of black voters said they planned to vote in this election. That number has now jumped to 74%.
Female voters also viewed Harris more highly than Trump, with 70% of women feeling that her policies would help women, compared to 43% who felt the same about Trump, according to the CBS poll.
CBS also found a gender gap between the two candidates, which has been uncovered in a series of other polls.
The poll found that Harris was chosen by 45% of men and 54% of women, while Trump was chosen by 54% of men and 45% of women.
When asked about the cognitive abilities of both candidates, 64% said Harris has the mental abilities necessary to be president, compared with 36% who said she doesn’t, while 51% said Trump has the cognitive abilities necessary, compared with 49% who said he doesn’t.
Numerous previous polls have measured deep voter anxiety about Biden’s mental acuity, which was behind the Democrats’ revolt against him in the wake of his abysmal performance in last month’s debate.
Sixty-eight percent of voters believed the country was ready to elect a black woman president, while 32% felt the country was not ready.
The CBS News/YouGov poll was conducted among 3,102 registered voters between July 30 and Aug. 2 and has a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points.
Polls have shown the race has tightened significantly overall with Harris, 59, replacing Biden, 81. The latest polls show Trump holding a 0.3 percentage point lead over Harris in the five-candidate national race. RealClearPolitics Count.
The RCP also predicted that the race between the two would be close in battleground states.
The Harris campaign is boasting momentum, including the $310 million her campaign-backed committee raised in July (more than double Trump’s fundraising that month) and rally attendance.
Trump campaigned in Atlanta on Saturday, just days before Harris held a rally in Georgia earlier this week, featuring Grammy Award winner Megan Thee Stallion and drawing an estimated crowd of about 10,000 people.
Tony Fabrizio, the Trump campaign’s chief pollster, previously warned that Harris would be experiencing a “honeymoon period” in the polls in the early days of her sudden surge in support.
“That means we will start to see polls, particularly national polls, that show Harris catching up to or even beginning to lead President Trump,” he explained in a memo last month.
“The polls may change in the short term, and Harris may solidify her base a little more, but she can’t change her identity or what she’s done so far. We’ll have to wait and see,” he added.
