Vice President Kamala Harris is leading the way to the White House by six points in the polls following her debate performance against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, Axios reports.
The poll, conducted by Morning Consult pollsters, shows Harris’ support at 51% compared to Trump’s 45% — a “new record” for the Democratic presidential nominee. Political analyst Eli Yokley says the majority of voters, including Republicans, believe Harris won the debate. “A majority of likely voters — including 1 in 5 Republicans — believe Harris won the debate, and performance appears to be crystalizing her national lead over the former president,” Yokley said.
Results also reveal which demographic her record-high support comes from.
“Her 51% of support among likely voters, which is also at a record high, is driven largely by her best figures to date among Democrats, Biden 2020 voters, liberals, women, 18- to 34-year-olds and millennials,” the poll read.
A scale ranking from one to 10 was used to identify the likely voters—those who voted “one” identified as definitely not voting in the November 2024 presidential election. A “10” meant they definitely will.
Only respondents who voted an “8” or higher were labeled likely voters.
According to the Economic Times, this is a huge win for Harris. Prior to the debate, the VP and Trump were almost tied. In August 2024, polls from Yahoo News/YouGov showed that she had a narrow lead of 47% to 46%. Other surveys show that she is doing much better than President Joe Biden when he was the Democratic presidential nominee. Harris has secured 95% of the Democratic vote compared to Biden’s 90% in previous polls.
Looking at 2020 and Biden’s support, the vice president has garnered 92%, a boost from 80%.
The debate was a key development for Harris. For voters who watched the Sept. 10 debate, 94% of Democrats felt Harris performed better, 40 points more than the Republicans who supported Trump, at 57%. Supporters saw Harris as being more “presidential”— 51% to 35% compared to the Republican nominee—and more “coherent” in her demeanor during the debate.
Viewers saw Trump as being “insulting” and “untruthful.”
Another factor that pushed Harris to the top was a surprising endorsement just minutes after the debate ended. In a touching post on Instagram, country and pop megastar Taylor Swift pushed for voter registration and shared her support of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Following her post, which was viewed by her 284 million followers, Swift linked her IG story to Vote.gov, resulting in 338,000 visits in 15 hours to the federal voter registration site.
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