Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

3 days ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

3 days ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

4 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

4 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

4 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

4 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

4 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

4 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

4 days ago
Harris Narrows Gap Against Trump, Times/Siena Poll Finds
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 12 months ago on
July 25, 2024

Former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Saturday, July 20, 2024. Instead of commanding morning-to-night media attention, Trump and his allies suddenly find themselves reacting to their opponents and struggling for attention. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Vice President Kamala Harris begins a 103-day sprint for the presidency in a virtual tie with former President Donald Trump, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, as her fresh candidacy was quickly reuniting a Democratic Party that had been deeply fractured over President Joe Biden.

Just days after the president abandoned his campaign under pressure from party leaders, the poll showed Democrats rallying behind Harris as the presumptive nominee, with only 14% saying they would prefer another option. An overwhelming 70% of Democratic voters said they wanted the party to speedily consolidate behind her rather than engage in a more competitive and drawn-out process.

Harris Reassembles the Democrat Party

Her swift reassembling of the Democratic coalition appeared to help narrow Trump’s significant advantage over Biden of only a few weeks ago. Harris was receiving 93% support from Democrats, the same share that Trump was getting from Republicans.

Overall, Trump leads Harris 48% to 47% among likely voters in a head-to-head match. That is a marked improvement for Democrats when compared with the Times/Siena poll in early July that showed Biden behind by 6 percentage points, in the aftermath of the poor debate performance that eventually drove him from the race.

Trump leads Harris 48% to 46% among registered voters. He had led among registered voters by nine percentage points over Biden in the post-debate poll.

Harris was faring better among groups that Biden had been the weakest in, especially younger voters and nonwhite voters. At the same time, some Democrats fear she might not retain the same strengths that Biden has had among older voters, for whom the poll does show some erosion of Democratic support.

The poll showed Harris garnering about 60% support from voters younger than 30 and Hispanic voters, groups Biden had consistently struggled with. Among voters younger than 45, Harris was ahead by 10 percentage points, less than three weeks after Trump had held a narrow edge with that group over Biden.

Because the survey was of voters nationwide, the impact of Harris’ candidacy in particular battleground states was not immediately clear. But a Democratic candidate with greater appeal to younger and more diverse voters could put renewed focus on the Sun Belt states of Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, which had been threatening to slip off the swing-state map for Biden.

Harris Is Expected Democrat Nominee

Harris has emerged as the Democratic Party’s expected nominee after a tumultuous few weeks. Biden stepped aside Sunday, following a month of drawn-out questions about his mental faculties following a poor debate performance at the end of June. In the interim, Trump escaped an assassination attempt, named Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate and formally accepted his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.

Harris is on a glide path toward next month’s Democratic convention as she seeks to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to serve as a U.S. president.

Harris faces some structural challenges as November approaches. She is the sitting vice president at a time when 75% of voters rated the nation’s economic conditions as “fair” or “poor.” And significantly more voters see Trump as a strong leader than those who say the same of Harris.

The country’s view of Harris has also brightened, with her favorable rating rising by 10 percentage points since February. Harris enters the campaign with a favorable rating of 46%, better than Biden’s, but still behind Trump’s.

Views of all three — Trump, Biden and Harris — split dramatically along gender lines. For the most part, men like Trump while women don’t. Women like Biden and Harris, while men don’t.

Trump Favorable Rating Went Up

Trump’s favorable rating ticked up to 48%. This comes not long after the indelible images of him rising to his feet after an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally, pumping his fist in the air as blood streaked across his face, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“Honestly the way he handled it after the fact, the way he pretty much stood up in defiance of what happened, kind of gave me that sense of pride that I hadn’t felt when it came to our country in a while,” said Eddie Otzoy, a 29-year-old contractor in Los Angeles, who had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but is now backing Trump. “Once the assassination attempt happened, it made me feel like they wanted to shut him up for a reason.”

Nearly 90% of voters said they approved of Biden’s decision to exit the race, a view shared by Democrats, Republicans and independents alike.

Perhaps as a result, Harris has almost instantly united the party behind her, to a far greater degree than Biden had been able to in the last two years. Nearly 4 in 5 Democrats or voters who lean toward the Democratic Party said they would like to nominate her. In contrast, only 48% of Democrats had said they wanted Biden as the nominee just three weeks ago.

In a multicandidate race, less than a single percentage point separated Trump and Harris, with Harris at 44% and Trump at 43% after rounding.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s share of the vote continues to drop, hitting just 5% of likely voters in the new survey. He was the only third-party candidate above 1%.

Among Harris and Trump’s greatest strengths in the poll were that voters saw them as intelligent and having the right temperament to handle the job. Harris gets slightly higher marks for her smarts; 66% of voters say “intelligent” describes her well, compared with 59% for Trump.

Neither candidate holds an edge on the ability to unify the country, a sign that perhaps, in this era of deep political polarization, few believe national unity is even possible.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

by Shane Goldmacher, Ruth Igielnik and Camille Baker/Doug Mills
c.2024 The New York Times Company

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

DON'T MISS

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

UP NEXT

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

UP NEXT

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

UP NEXT

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

UP NEXT

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

UP NEXT

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

UP NEXT

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

UP NEXT

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

UP NEXT

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

Trump Criticized for Using Antisemitic ‘Shylock’ to Describe Bankers

43 minutes ago

Iran President Says Open to Dialogue With US, Accuses Israel of Assassination Attempt

53 minutes ago

Shy but Sweet Field Survivor, Poppy the Pup, Now Up for Adoption

1 hour ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Douglas Wayne Brittain

1 hour ago

Tesla Slides as Musk’s ‘America Party’ Heightens Investor Worries

1 hour ago

US-Backed 60-Day Gaza Ceasefire Envisages Gradual Return of Hostages, Official Says

1 hour ago

Trump to Terminate Deportation Protection for Thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans in US

1 hour ago

One Killed, Dozens Wounded in Russian Strikes on Kharkiv in Ukraine

1 hour ago

Texas Girls’ Camp Mourning Dozens Dead in Floods as Search Teams Face More Rain

1 hour ago

Netanyahu to Meet Trump at White House as Israel, Hamas Discuss Ceasefire

1 hour ago

Fresno Police Arrest 9 at Independence Day DUI Checkpoint

Nine drivers were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence during a DUI checkpoint in Fresno on the night of July 4, the Fresno ...

18 minutes ago

Fresno Police arrested nine people for DUI and cited 20 others during a Friday, July 4, 2025, checkpoint that screened 227 vehicles. (GV Wire Composite/Paul Marshall)
18 minutes ago

Fresno Police Arrest 9 at Independence Day DUI Checkpoint

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference after the Senate passes U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 1, 2025. (Reuters/Annabelle Gordon)
29 minutes ago

Schumer Wants Probe of National Weather Service Response in Texas

Palestinians inspect the damage at an UNRWA school sheltering displaced people that was hit in an Israeli air strike on Sunday, in Gaza City, June 30, 2025. (Reuters/Mahmoud Issa)
32 minutes ago

Israeli Guilt Over Gaza Lurks Beneath Silence and Denial

President Donald Trump comes out of the White House onto a balcony on the day he is expected to sign a sweeping spending and tax legislation, known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 4, 2025. (Reuters/Leah Millis)
43 minutes ago

Trump Criticized for Using Antisemitic ‘Shylock’ to Describe Bankers

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a meeting in Ilam, Iran, June 12, 2025. Iran's Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
53 minutes ago

Iran President Says Open to Dialogue With US, Accuses Israel of Assassination Attempt

Poppy, a smart and sweet 2- to 3-year-old dog who survived months alone in a field, is now ready for adoption into a loving home. (Mell's Mutts)
1 hour ago

Shy but Sweet Field Survivor, Poppy the Pup, Now Up for Adoption

Douglas Wayne Brittain
1 hour ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Douglas Wayne Brittain

The TESLA logo is seen outside a dealership in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., April 26, 2021. (Reuters File)
1 hour ago

Tesla Slides as Musk’s ‘America Party’ Heightens Investor Worries

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend