Vice President Kamala Harris has significantly improved her standing among women voters in recent weeks, according to new polling results.
Harris’ presidential campaign was launched just after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21. She is now all but certain to become the Democratic nominee and face off against former President Donald Trump in November’s election.
Democrats have reacted to Harris becoming the de facto nominee with enthusiasm, as a wave of momentum for the vice president’s candidacy has generated a string of recent poll results showing her outperforming Biden and in some cases leading Trump.
A poll released by YouGov/The Economist on Wednesday found that support for Harris is surging in particular among women, showing a 9-point gain in the key demographic in less than three weeks.
The poll, conducted from July 27 to July 30, found that Harris was the choice of 50 percent of women voters, while Trump was preferred by 39 percent. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mustered just 2 percent, while 6 percent said they were undecided and 2 percent said they would not vote.
A version of the poll from July 21 to July 23 found that Harris was preferred by 43 percent of women, while Trump was the choice of 41 percent. In another conducted from July 13 to July 16, before Harris began her campaign, she was favored by 41 percent of women.
The polls from YouGov/The Economist also show that Harris has been making smaller but steady gains among men over the past few weeks, with her standing improving by 2 points every week for three weeks.
The vice president was the choice of 37 percent of men in the poll ending July 16 and the choice of 39 percent in the poll ending July 23. In the most recent poll, Harris was preferred over Trump by 41 percent of men.
All of the surveys were conducted online among U.S. registered voters. The polls have margins of error of 3.0 percent and 3.1 percent.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email on Wednesday.
Harris was leading Trump among all registered voters in the latest YouGov/The Economist poll, 44 percent to 42 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error.
Additional national and battleground polls show mixed results and the likelihood of a close race in November, with Trump holding a slight edge overall. However, Harris only recently became the likely Democratic nominee and the polling picture may soon come into clearer focus.
In previous comments to Newsweek, Dan Lamb, senior lecturer at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, predicted that Harris would improve her polling position further over the next few weeks.
“It’s hard to see the buzz letting up, with attention turning to her VP pick and the DNC’s delegate voting starting in early August,” Lamb said. “After that comes the DNC convention. The next several weeks could be very favorable for her polling.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
