Washington (Web Desk/Agencies): US Vice President Kamala Harris has been quickly building momentum among fellow Democrats as she seeks to clinch her party’s nomination, posing a challenge to Republican nominee Donald Trump, a new poll shows.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between July 22 and July 23, found Harris leading Trump 44% to 42% among registered voters. Five percent of voters said they would support some other candidate, 4% said they wouldn’t vote and 4% said they didn’t know. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The latest findings show Harris making steady progress. She was previously tied with Trump 44% in a July Reuters/Ipsos poll, and the former president was leading Harris by one percentage point in a June poll.
The poll also found that 83% of registered voters support President Joe Biden leaving the 2024 race. Biden dropped out on Sunday after several Democratic lawmakers, donors and others in the party expressed concerns about the president since his dismal debate performance in June.
In the most recent poll of a three-way race with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Harris leads by 4 points, with 42 percent support to Trump’s 38 percent and Kennedy’s 8 percent.
Pollsters also found some improvements in the numbers for the Democratic candidate since Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris on Sunday. They found 56 percent of registered voters said Harris is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” while just 22 percent said the same about Biden. By comparison, 49 percent said that about Trump, 78.
The vice president’s favourability rating among all adults also ticked up, rising from 39 percent a week ago to 44 percent now. The percentage of respondents who view her unfavourably dropped from 53 percent to 50 percent.
Trump’s favourability rating remained exactly the same, with 41 percent viewing him favourably and 55 percent viewing him unfavourably.
Shortly after the poll was released, Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio warned in a memo of a coming “Harris Honeymoon” in which he expects the vice president to receive widespread positive coverage from media outlets.
He said she would energize Democrats, but only in the short term, causing a temporary effect where Harris narrows Trump’s leads or gains on him.
Fabrizio added Democrats and media outlets will use these numbers to argue that the race has fundamentally changed, but it has not.
The poll was conducted from July 22 to 23 among 1,241 U.S. adults, including 1,018 registered voters.
The margin of error was 3 points for the entire sample and 3.3 points for registered voters.
Meanwhile, at her first presidential campaign event since securing enough delegate pledges for the Democratic nomination — Ms.Harris used the rally to sharply frame her race against Trump.
“So Wisconsin, I am told as of this morning that we have earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. And I am so very honoured, and I pledge to you, I will spend the coming weeks continuing to unite our party so that we are ready to win in November,” Harris said to an energetic crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin — just outside of Milwaukee.
Harris attacked Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, on the issue of abortion.
“We’ll stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own body and not have the government tell them what to do,” Harris said to raucous applause.
“And when Congress passes the law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law.”
