Presidential candidate Kamala Harris still holds a slight lead over former President Donald Trump, but will it last after last week's interview with CNN? Harris still enjoyed an edge with prospective voters as Labor Day approached, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll suggests, but it might not be sustainable as Trump consolidates his strength among swing-state voters.
In a head-to-head matchup, Harris holds a 48% to 45% advantage over Trump in the September I&I/TIPP Poll, with 1,386 registered voters answering the survey from Aug. 28-Aug. 30. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.
Harris appears to have solidified her Democratic base by continuing to run a campaign without a real policy platform that could be discussed or debated by voters, instead appearing at staged events with vice presidential candidate and current Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in tow. She has 92% of the Democratic vote, while just 5% of her party say they will vote for Trump.
Trump retains a solid 88% of all Republicans, but his support shows some leakage in the latest poll with 9% of GOP party members saying they will vote for Harris. That's a net loss of 4% for Trump, compared to Harris.
Trump holds a slim lead among independents, at 43% Trump to 42% Harris, with 5% saying they prefer someone else and 9% saying they're still undecided.
With the margin of error at just under three percentage points, the race remains too close to call. That's especially the case in a volatile political campaign that has featured an unprecedented amount of tampering with its own primary process, abandoning 14 million votes for President Joe Biden and making Harris the party's nominee instead.
The picture is further muddied by our second question in the presidential horserace. It asks voters to include third party and independent candidates in their responses.
There, Harris gets 47% to Trump's 43%. But that's clouded by the 4% that say they still plan to vote for Kennedy-family scion Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who on Aug. 23 announced he was dropping his campaign for president and would back Trump instead. Another 1% said they would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein, while 1% supported "other."
It's unclear whether the 4% are among those who don't realize that Kennedy dropped out and won't be on most states' ballots. But RFK Jr.'s numbers were as high as 12% in early summer, so Harris likely was the recipient of some of those progressive voters. And RFK Jr. still retains a big share of independent and third party voters, with 8% of that group saying they still support RFK, Jr.
Indeed, all told, 11% of the independents support either an independent or third party candidate, including Stein or radical former professor and activist Cornel West.
One other point to make: This year, Trump appears to be doing much better among minorities than in the last election. In 2020, Trump received just 12% of black votes, and 32% of Hispanic votes. Right now, Trump is receiving 23% of the black vote and 33% of the Hispanic vote.
Will these crucial voters show up at the polls? It depends on how interested Americans are in actually voting.
The I&I/TIPP Poll asked voters the following question: "On a scale from 1 to 7, where one means not at all interested and seven means extremely interested, how interested are you in this year's presidential election?"
Turns out, people are very interested. Among all the responses, 77% said they were "very interested" (combining the two highest scores, 6 and 7) while just 4% said they were "not very interested" (the two lowest scores, 1 and 2). The rest totaled 18%.
Interest among Democrats is 81%, and even higher at 85% for Republicans. But only 66% of indie voters declared themselves very interested. As we asked above, will those voters show up, or stay at home? Black and Hispanic voters are 72% "very interested" in the election, compared to a slightly higher 80% for white Americans.
One other way of gauging whether voters will show up at the polls or not is to ask how strong they support their candidate. Here again, the candidates are neck-and-neck. Some 70% of Republican voters say they support Trump "strongly," while 29% support him "moderately." For Harris, the comparable numbers are 72% and 27%, no real statistical difference.
Two final questions helped round out the picture, the first: "Regardless of your candidate preference, who do you expect to win the presidential election in November?"
Here, Harris leads Trump 43% to 39%, largely because Democrats are more sure that their candidate will win (83%) than Republicans (75%). Just 8% of Dems say the matchup is "too close to call," compared to 12% of Republicans.
The final question on this week's report: "To the best of your knowledge, if the presidential election were held today, who do you believe most of your neighbors would vote for?"
The intent here is to get at a hidden preference or belief by voters of all stripes. Again, the results are enlightening: Overall, 43% respond Trump, while 39% answer Harris, and 17% aren't sure.
The question is, are people outside of their own wishes sensing a "wave of silent voters" moving into the Trump column, as happened in 2016 when he trailed Hillary Clinton even as she had what some called "a commanding lead" heading into the final days? Or is something else afoot?
The fact is, Harris by no means has a comfortable lead.
As of Sept. 1, according to the political website Polymarket, which bases election odds on bets made by individual "investors" trying to predict the outcome, the probability of Trump winning (50%) is two points higher than Harris' 48%. As recently as Aug. 14, the numbers were sharply reversed, with Trump at 43% and Harris at 57% (numbers rounded to nearest digit.)
Meanwhile, a look at the six major swing states followed by the political website indicate Trump's odds are better than 50% in four of them (Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania), and trailing Harris in two (Wisconsin and Michigan).
Other polls, likewise, show Trump leading in key swing states.
These days, polls abound, and one must be careful about those that are less than meticulous in their numbers (for the TIPP's polling record, look here and here). Some polls show Harris with a widening lead, while the RealClear Politics "poll of polls" shows Harris holding on to a small 1.8 percentage point edge over Trump. Others show Trump with the edge.
With just over 60 days until the election, no single poll is definitive. However, contrary to claims made in the media, the election remains too close to call. It's vital to understand, as we noted above, that Trump has outperformed his polling numbers, for a variety of reasons. And two months in a volatile political, news-driven contest like this one is an eternity.
I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past five presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
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