Harris Lead Over Trump Shrinks as Election Looms, Polls Show Tightening Race
With less than a month remaining before the US presidential election, a series of polls suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris’s lead over incumbent Donald Trump is narrowing, signaling a tightening race for the White House, Al Jazeera reports.
Three recent polls released on Sunday show a shift in the race, with Harris’s lead either shrinking or disappearing altogether.
The latest NBC News poll finds the two candidates tied nationally at 48%, a significant change from last month when Harris held a 5-point lead. The ABC News/Ipsos poll shows Harris ahead by a narrow margin of 50% to 48%, down from a 6-point lead in the same poll last month. The CBS News/YouGov poll shows Harris with a 3-point lead, 51% to 48%, compared to a 4-point lead last month.
These tightening polls have sparked concerns among Democrats that Harris is struggling to secure support among Hispanic and African American voters, two key constituencies for the Democratic Party. While Harris maintains a strong lead among women of all races, she has faced difficulty motivating male voters, including African Americans and Hispanics, who have increasingly leaned towards Trump in recent years.
This trend is reflected in the latest New York Times/Siena College polls, released over the weekend. These polls show Harris attracting the support of 78% of Black voters and 56% of Hispanic voters, significantly lower than the percentages garnered by Democratic nominees in the 2020 and 2016 elections.
Former President Barack Obama recently addressed this trend, urging Black men to show the same level of enthusiasm for Harris’s candidacy that they demonstrated during his campaigns.
Despite the tightening polls, Harris and Trump continue to focus their campaigns on key battleground states, holding events in North Carolina and Arizona, respectively.
At a campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, Harris criticized Trump’s handling of the government’s response to recent hurricanes, accusing him of spreading misinformation. Trump, meanwhile, addressed a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where he called for the hiring of 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents.
