Vice President Kamala Harris is behind former President Donald Trump in both a recent national poll and one conducted in the key swing state of Georgia.
A CNBC/All-America Economic survey of 1,001 U.S. adults shows that Harris is 2 points behind her Republican rival in the 2024 election (48 percent to 46). The results are within the margin of error, and Trump’s lead is unchanged from the previous poll in July when President Joe Biden was still in the race (45 percent to 43).
Elsewhere, an AARP Research survey of 1,254 likely voters in Georgia showed that Trump is beating Harris by 2 points (46 percent to 44) in a full presidential ballot that also includes independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (4 percent), Cornel West (2 percent) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (1 percent).
In a head to head ballot, Trump and Harris are tied on 48 percent in the AARP Research poll. Georgia is one of the key battleground states that both Trump and Harris hope to win in November’s election.
Pollsters who conducted the CNBC/All-America Economic Survey suggested that Harris is experiencing momentum and enthusiasm for her campaign that was lacking for Biden, despite still being behind Trump.
The survey shows 81 percent of Democrats are satisfied with Harris as their 2024 nominee, compared with 33 percent who said the same thing about Biden.
Harris is now the preferred candidate among younger voters by 10 points. In CNBC’s July poll, Trump led Biden among this demographic by 2 points.
“It is less now a referendum on Trump than it is a head-to-head competition between the two candidates,” Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies who served as the Republican pollster on the survey, told CNBC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Jay Campbell, a partner at Hart Research who served as the Democratic pollster on the CNBC survey, said that Harris is still “carrying a lot of water for the administration” and needs to define her own campaign between now and November.
“That’s a lot of baggage to carry when you’ve got a compressed time frame against a mature campaign on Trump’s side,” Campbell said.
Newsweek reached out to Harris and Trump’s campaigns via email for comment.
Elsewhere, the AARP Research poll shows that Harris has the overwhelming support of Black voters (78 percent) in the full ballot survey, which could prove vital in the swing state where 30 percent of its population is Black.
Trump is the preferred candidate of white voters in Georgia, at 66 percent.
The CNBC/All-America Economic Survey poll of 1,001 Americans was conducted between July 31 and August 4. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
The AARP Research poll was conducted between July 24 and July 31 between 1,254 likely voters. The margin of error is 4 percent.
