Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are in a near deadlock in the national race amid this year’s presidential election, with Harris leading in one battleground state, according to a new poll released on Sunday.
The poll comes nearly two weeks after President Joe Biden‘s unprecedented decision to withdraw from the race and endorse Harris. Since then, she has garnered widespread support from the party and is poised to lead the Democratic ticket in November.
A CBS News/YouGov survey of 3,102 registered voters interviewed between July 30 and August 2 that was published on Sunday shows Harris leading in the battleground state of Nevada. The survey, which did not specify how many state-level voters were polled, puts Harris ahead of Trump by 2 percentage points in the Western state, 50 to 48 percent respectively.
In three other battleground states—Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—Harris and Trump are in a deadlock, tied at 49 percent, 48 percent, and 50 percent, respectively.
On the other hand, The New York Times state aggregate polls find Harris behind in two of those states, at 47 percent to Trump’s 49 percent in Pennsylvania, and 48 percent to Trump’s 49 percent in Michigan.
The CBS News/YouGov poll found Trump, the GOP nominee, leading in three battleground states. According to the poll, he’s up 1 percentage point in Wisconsin, 50 to 49 percent, and up 3 percentage points in Georgia and North Carolina, 50 percent to Harris’ 47 percent. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The New York Times aggregate poll instead finds Trump and Harris tied at 49 percent in Wisconsin.
Despite trailing in some battleground states, the CBS News/YouGov poll of likely voters puts Harris ahead of Trump by 1-point in the national polls, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
FiveThirtyEight, another national poll aggregator, indicates that Harris is also leading the former president (45.1 to 43.6 percent) as of Sunday afternoon, giving her a 1.5 percentage point advantage.
In contrast, the Times‘ national aggregate poll shows Trump ahead of Harris by 1 point, 48 to 47 percent. However, when third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is included in the poll, Harris and Trump drop to an even 44 percent.
Regarding demographic gains, the CBS News/YouGov poll found that Harris is leading among women voters, finding that 70 percent of women registered voters believe Harris’ policies will help them, whereas 43 percent believe Trump’s will. That question has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
Harris polls well among Black voters, with 81 percent of likely Black voters supporting her, up from 73 percent that previously supported Biden in July. An overwhelming majority, 80 percent, of Black registered voters believe Harris’ policies will help Black people, compared to 20 percent finding the same true for Trump.
In an email statement on Sunday, Trump’s campaign responded publicly to the poll, writing, “The Fake News Media continue to help dangerously liberal Kamala hide her record of economic failure and soft on crime policies. Now, as this analysis shows they’ll even put a finger on the scale of polling to inflate results for her.”
The campaign’s email continued: “The latest CBS/YouGov poll of registered voters nationwide showing margin-of-error shifts in the national head-to-head ballot between President Trump and Kamala Harris is entirely the result of a methodological decision allowing ideology to change significantly, while maintaining weights on age, partisanship, and race to make the survey appear not to have been manipulated.”
Meanwhile, the poll’s methodology states that “the survey included an oversample of Black respondents. The final sample as reported was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as to 2020 presidential vote.”
Newsweek reached out to the YouGov press team for comment via email on Sunday. Newsweek alsoreached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email on Sunday.
Updated 8/4/24 at 3:07 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional context and comment from Trump’s campaign.
