What Polls Say Ahead of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump Debate

Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump in polling averages ahead of their first debate, but forecasts indicate that the vice president may not win in November.
Before the event, which is due to take place tonight in Philadelphia at 9 p.m. ET, some polls were showing Harris in the lead. For example, the latest poll by Big Village, conducted between September 6 and 8, shows Harris 5 points ahead of Trump among likely voters, on 49 percent to his 44 percent.
A majority of the other national polls from September have also shown Harris in the lead, including surveys by Emerson College and Outward Intelligence, which showed her 4 points in the lead, while polls by Morning Consult and YouGov and The Economist showed her between 2 and 3 points ahead among likely voters.
However, a recent national poll, conducted by the New York Times and Siena College between September 3 and 6, gave the former president a one-point lead over Harris among likely voters.
It is the first major poll to show a drop in support for Harris, which the New York Times speculated may represent the end of a honeymoon period and a “euphoric August” for the vice president.
“The honeymoon is officially over,” Trump spokesperson Jason Miller told Politico after the poll was published.
Meanwhile, some analysts have warned that the new poll is an outlier and that it’s too early to tell if Harris’ lead has been overtaken.
“As good as NYT/Siena is, it’s just one poll so we should await further high quality polling before getting carried away with narratives of momentum shifts,” pollster Adam Carlson wrote in a post on X.
Polling averages also show that Harris’ lead over Trump has reduced in the past two weeks, with the vice president’s average lead reducing to 2.8 points from 3.6 points on August 24, according to FiveThirtyEight.
However, despite Harris’ decline, FiveThirtyEight’s forecast still shows she’s predicted to win in November, with 277 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 261. But that is down from August 28, when the forecast showed Harris on 291 votes to Trump’s 247.
FiveThirtyEight’s forecast is not the only one to show that Trump’s chances of winning the Electoral College have increased.
Nate Silver’s forecast last week marked Trump’s highest chance of winning since the end of July, with the former president holding a 60.1 percent chance of winning the Electoral College. Harris, on the other hand, had a 39.7 percent chance.
Since then, Trump’s chances of victory have increased, according to the forecast, which shows Trump with a 64.4 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, compared to Harris’ 35.3 percent. It also indicates that Harris’ chance of winning the popular vote has decreased from 58 percent to 56 percent, while she is projected to win 256 electoral votes to Trump’s 282. Harris is still leading in Silver’s polling average by 2.3 points.
RealClearPolitics’ forecast also shows that while Harris is leading according to polling averages, Trump is winning the Electoral College when toss up states are removed, with the vice president on 257 votes to Trump’s 281.
Last week, RealClearPolitics put Harris ahead in the Electoral College when tossup states were removed.
Meanwhile, things have not looked so positive for Harris in the polls in the swing states. The latest Morning Consult poll, conducted between August 30 and September 8, showed that Harris was leading by 3 points in three swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — while Trump lead by 2 points in Arizona, and the candidates were tied in Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
Another poll conducted by Patriot Polling between September 1 and 3 showed that Trump is set to flip Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, and keep North Carolina red, while Harris will narrowly keep Michigan and Wisconsin blue.
Forecasts by FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics show that Harris is predicted to win in three swing states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada — while Trump is predicted to win in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia.
The only swing states where the two pollsters differ is Pennsylvania, with Trump predicted to win the state by RealClearPolitics, while the latest FiveThirtyEight forecast shows the two candidates will tie there.
Political scientists and analysts have claimed that the debate could shake the polls up after the first debate, between Joe Biden and Trump, led to the 81-year-old president ending his re-election campaign.
“This debate is very high stakes,” Adam Carlson wrote in a post on X.
In another post he warned that the race is “extremely tight.”
“There’s no reason for either side to get despondent this early,” he said. “We are a normal polling error away from a comfortable win for either candidate.”
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.