As of Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris is leading former President Donald Trump in six national aggregate polls for the extremely tight 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Harris joined the campaign trail after President Joe Biden‘s unprecedented exit from the race on July 21 and has since garnered widespread support from the Democratic party. As of Saturday, six national aggregate polls place her in the lead in presidential polls, with margins ranging from .5 to 2.5 percentage points.
Aggregate polls are consistently updated as new polling data is added, shifting the averages in real time.
The following percentages are as of Saturday afternoon.
RealClearPolitics shows Harris ahead by the smallest margin of the six polls, placing her .5 percentage points ahead of Trump—47.6 percent to 47.1 percent.
With a margin of 1 percentage point, The New York Times aggregate poll shows Harris at 48 percent and Trump at 47 percent. When independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is factored in, the gap between the Democratic and Republican candidates widens to 2 percentage points, with Harris at 45 percent, Trump at 43 percent, and Kennedy at 5 percent.
Race to the WH’s aggregate shows Harris leading by 1.6 percentage points, 48.3 percent to Trump’s 46.7 percent. In a race with third-party candidates, both Democratic and Republican candidates lose votes, with Harris garnering 45.7 percent, Trump 43.5 percent, Kennedy 5.4 percent, and Cornel West at .5 percent.
FiveThirtyEight puts Harris ahead by 2 percentage points, 45.6 percent to Trump’s 43.5 percent, with Kennedy garnering 5.1 percent of the vote. Similarly, 270toWin also shows a 2-percentage point margin, showing Harris garnering 47.5 percent of the vote and Trump 45.5 percent.
Statistician Nate Silver‘s Silver Bulletin aggregate poll shows the greatest margin for Harris, with a 2.5 percentage point lead at 46.5 percent to Trump’s 44 percent.
However, The Hill shows Harris trailing Trump by .2 percentage points, 47.2 percent to 47.4 percent.
All of the aggregate polls reveal a close presidential election where candidates are constantly inching up or down within the margin of error based on new poll inclusions.
Even though the aggregate polls take the temperature of voters nationwide, the presidential election is determined by individual states and Electoral College votes. Candidates must secure 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, which is not always accurately reflected by the nationwide popular vote, as state-specific victories are necessary to secure electoral votes.
Polls from battleground states, which are crucial for securing key electoral votes, reveal a closely contested race between Trump and Harris, with Harris outperforming Biden’s previous numbers in most cases.
In Wisconsin—a state with 10 Electoral College votes—Harris is leading, with The Hill’s state aggregate showing her ahead at 48.9 percent to Trump’s 47.4 percent, while FiveThirtyEight puts her at 46.7 percent compared to Trump’s 44.4 percent.
Meanwhile, The Hill puts Trump ahead by 1 percentage point in Pennsylvania, which has 19 Electoral College votes, with 48 percent to Harris’ 47 percent. As of Saturday, The New York Times puts the two candidates in a complete deadlock in the state, both with 48 percent, as of yesterday it had Trump ahead by 2 percentage points.
Newsweek reached out to Trump and Harris’ campaign for comment via email on Saturday.
