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Pinpointing differences in the economic views of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden is no easy task: the two have promoted the same ideas and touted the same accomplishments for the past three and a half years. But give this to Ms Harris: she seems capable of wrapping their wide set of policies, from semiconductor subsidies to student-debt cancellation, in more attractive packaging than her boss did. Mr Biden called it his “build back better” agenda, a mouthful that never caught on. In recent speeches on economics the backdrop behind Ms Harris has displayed a more elegant phrase: “freedom to thrive”.

Whether or not that becomes a slogan in her presidential campaign, people who have worked with Ms Harris say it encapsulates her philosophy and her approach to economic policy. She would aim for an extension, not a refashioning, of Bidenomics. Mr Biden delivered one half of his programme, with large investments in American infrastructure, manufacturing and green energy. Ms Harris would continue that, now mostly in its implementation phase. But her main focus would be on the other half of his programme, a social agenda left largely unconsummated.

July 23 (Reuters) - Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican  after President  ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a  found.

That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week's poll before his Sunday exit from the race.

If Harris earns the nomination, polling conducted before Biden's decision shows she might have a higher hurdle to clear than Biden did in North Carolina. North Carolina delegates and Gov. Roy Cooper, rumored to be on a short list of possible Harris running mates, endorsed the vice president Sunday.

Democratic delegates from North Carolina unanimously endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s presidential nominee Sunday after a whirlwind of political maneuvering in the hours after President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris has consolidated Democratic support in the days since President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential election, and polls show a tight race in November against former President Donald Trump.

Harris has appeared to secure enough delegates to win her party's nomination during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) next month. She received the endorsement of Biden after he stepped aside from the campaign following weeks of pressure from other Democrats concerned about his ability to win the election amid floundering poll numbers.

Republicans may be starting to second-guess their party’s pick for vice president.

Much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, including the decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, was structured around attacks on President Joe Biden. But then Biden announced Sunday that he was withdrawing from the presidential race altogether.

In the days since he became Trump's running mate, JD Vance's vulnerabilities have become clear.

Until now, Vance was mostly unknown nationwide. That makes it easier for opponents to define him.

Less than a day after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement, the national political landscape has dramatically shifted. While Biden had been slipping in the polls, particularly after his disastrous debate performance, a new national poll indicated that Harris could secure a victory against the Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump. However, in all seven battleground states that are likely to decide the election's outcome, Trump has maintained a slight lead over his Democratic rivals. Trump officially accepted the Republican nomination at the GOP convention last week, but the Democratic National Convention will not start until August 19, giving Democrats a little less than a month to amass support for a new nominee. Harris is more than likely to take up the helm, with over 40% of the 1,968 delegates she needs pledging their support to her on the first day of her candidacy. Here’s how Harris would fare against Trump in the seven key swing states, according to the most recent polls. Though polls from the aftermath of Biden’s exit from the race have not yet been released, an InsiderAdvantage poll conducted on July 15 and 16, days before Biden’s announcement, showed Trump leading over Biden in Arizona. Out of the 800 voters surveyed, 49% supported Trump, 44% favored Biden, 4% chose a third-party candidate, and 3% undecided. Harris polled slightly below Trump, amassing 42% compared to his 48%. However, as Harris was still the vice presidential candidate when the survey was conducted, InsiderAdvantage political analyst Matt Towery said her weaker ratings were unsurprising, and will likely change in subsequent polls. “With the mantel of nominee, her numbers could potentially improve,” he said. An exclusive poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution released hours after President Joe Biden announced his departure from the ticket showed former President Donald Trump with a slight lead over Harris, with a 51% to 46% rating respectively, and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Two percent of voters said they were undecided, 1% said they would vote for a third-party candidate, and another 1% said they would not vote for any presidential candidate. The poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters between July 9 and 18, as Democratic lawmakers were increasingly calling on Biden to reconsider his bid for reelection and amid the assassination attempt on Trump. It was conducted by the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs. Black voters, a crucial demographic in the Peach State, notably preferred Harris to Biden. Nearly 87% of respondents said they viewed Harris favorably, compared to the 82% who said the same of Biden. An exclusive poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press and released hours before Biden abandoned his reelection bid, showed former President Donald Trump with a notable 7-percentage-point lead over the incumbent president. But with Harris as the nominee, those numbers could change. Recent polling from the Clean and Prosperous America PAC, a left-leaning environmental advocacy group, showed that voters preferred Trump to Harris, with 46% voting for him and 41% choosing the Vice President. However, if Harris were to choose Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as her running mate, the poll said, the candidates would tie with 46% each. An InsiderAdvantage poll conducted on July 15 and 16, days before Biden’s announced that he was dropping out of the race showed Trump leading over Biden in Nevada 49% to 42% in a sample of 800 voters. Pitted against Harris, Trump increased his lead among the voters polled, receiving 50% of the vote compared to Harris’ 40%. But as with the Arizona poll, experts said those numbers will likely if Harris becomes the official nominee. Though there are currently no polls pitting Harris against Trump, a recent survey from Emerson College conducted on July 15 and 16 showed Trump leading over Biden by 7 points, scoring 47% of respondents compared to Biden's 38%. A little over a week after the shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, former President Trump has retained a narrow 4.4% lead over incumbent President Biden, according to polling averages calculated by FiveThirtyEight. However, even before Biden announced his departure from the race, figures from Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling showed that voters were more enthusiastic about Harris than they were for Biden, putting her only two points behind Trump at 43% and 45% respectively. A Civiqs survey of 514 voters in Wisconsin showed Trump and Harris tied at 48%, with a 4.8% margin of error. The survey was conducted between July 13 and 16, in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s assassination attempt and before Biden withdrew from the race. At the time, 28% of voters surveyed said Biden’s age was the primary concern they had with the possibility of the president’s second term.

July 23 (Reuters) - Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week's poll before his Sunday exit from the race.

Harris emerged as the clear favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 contest on July 21 and endorsed his vice president. The move came after intense focus on the age and cognitive ability of the 81-year-old president following his debate with Trump on June 27, where at several points Biden appeared to lose his train of thought mid-sentence.

Tuesday evening saw the publication of a major Ipsos/Reuters poll suggesting Harris is now ahead of Trump in the presidential contest, either in a head-to-head or with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included. In a straight matchup, the survey of 1,018 registered voters put Harris on 44 percent against 42 percent for Trump. When Kennedy was included, Harris's lead extended to four points, with the Democrat on 42 percent against 38 percent for Trump and eight percent for the independent. The survey was conducted on July 22 and 23.

July 23 (Reuters) - Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican  after President  ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a  found.

That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week's poll before his Sunday exit from the race.

Harris emerged as the clear favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 contest on July 21 and endorsed his vice president. The move came after intense focus on the age and cognitive ability of the 81-year-old president following his debate with Trump on June 27, where at several points Biden appeared to lose his train of thought mid-sentence.

Tuesday evening saw the publication of a major Ipsos/Reuters poll suggesting Harris is now ahead of Trump in the presidential contest, either in a head-to-head or with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included. In a straight matchup, the survey of 1,018 registered voters put Harris on 44 percent against 42 percent for Trump. When Kennedy was included, Harris's lead extended to four points, with the Democrat on 42 percent against 38 percent for Trump and eight percent for the independent. The survey was conducted on July 22 and 23.

ABC News, The Washington Post, and Ipsos conducted a poll from July 6 to July 9 interviewing 2,431 U.S. registered voters via phone. ABC News/The Washington Post polls are ranked second in FiveThirtyEight’s list of best pollsters after the New York Times/Siena College, which has yet to release a national survey on a Harris vs. Trump matchup.

Their survey found that Harris outperformed Trump by 2 percentage points. That was slightly better than Biden, who in the same poll, performed exactly the same as Trump. However, this poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, which means that Trump and Harris were neck and neck.

This renewed sense of Democratic presidential enthusiasm comes with a dollar sign attached. According to the Harris campaign, the vice-president raised more than $80m (£62m) in new donations in the 24 hours since Mr Biden’s announcement – the biggest one-day total of any candidate this election cycle. That, along with the nearly $100m she inherits from the Biden-Harris fundraising coffers, gives her a firm financial footing for the campaign to come.

Ms Harris, if she becomes the nominee, also defuses one of the most effective attacks the Republicans have levelled against their opponent: his age. 

Ms. Harris is chronically underestimated, as are so many women in politics, but she is well prepared for this moment. As a prosecutor and attorney general in California, she took on drug traffickers, polluters and predatory lenders. As a U.S. senator, she rigorously questioned squirming Trump administration officials and nominees and was inspiring to watch. As vice president, Ms. Harris has sat with the president in the Situation Room, helping make the hardest decisions a leader can make. And when the extremist Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she became the administration’s most passionate and effective advocate for restoring women’s reproductive rights.

I look forward to hearing her prosecute a compelling case against Mr. Trump, who failed as a president the first time and is running on a dangerous agenda. A second Trump term would be much worse than the first. Mr. Trump’s plans are more extreme, he is more unhinged, and the guardrails that constrained some of his worst instincts are gone.

For all of the enthusiasm and cash Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is generating for Democrats, her true tests are about to begin.

Why it matters: To beat Donald Trump, Harris will have to overcome President Biden's polling deficits — and questions about how well she'll fare with working-class voters in the crucial "Blue Wall" swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for president outlined her "path to victory" against former President Donald Trump in a memo Wednesday, touting $126 million now raised since President Joe Biden announced his exit from the 2024 election.

Jen O'Malley Dillon, chair of the Harris campaign, said in the memo that Harris is in "a strong position to win," pointing to three main factors: Harris' "well-documented support" among Black, Hispanic, and young voters, each core Democratic constituencies; an opportunity to expand Democrats' growing advantage with college-educated voters; and Harris' appeal with undecided voters.

This renewed sense of Democratic presidential enthusiasm comes with a dollar sign attached. According to the Harris campaign, the vice-president raised more than $80m (£62m) in new donations in the 24 hours since Mr Biden’s announcement – the biggest one-day total of any candidate this election cycle. That, along with the nearly $100m she inherits from the Biden-Harris fundraising coffers, gives her a firm financial footing for the campaign to come.

Ms Harris, if she becomes the nominee, also defuses one of the most effective attacks the Republicans have levelled against their opponent: his age. 

If Harris earns the nomination, polling conducted before Biden's decision shows she might have a higher hurdle to clear than Biden did in North Carolina. North Carolina delegates and Gov. Roy Cooper, rumored to be on a short list of possible Harris running mates, endorsed the vice president Sunday.

Democratic delegates from North Carolina unanimously endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s presidential nominee Sunday after a whirlwind of political maneuvering in the hours after President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection campaign.

For all of the enthusiasm and cash Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is generating for Democrats, her true tests are about to begin. Why it matters: To beat Donald Trump, Harris will have to overcome President Biden's polling deficits — and questions about how well she'll fare with working-class voters in the crucial "Blue Wall" swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Californian likely will need to win all three without "Scranton Joe" — the monicker Biden used to remind Pennsylvania voters of his working-class roots when he won the presidency in 2020. Early national polls suggest Harris' entry has given Democrats a bump in a tight race, but the presidential election is a state-by-state contest. Harris appears to be energizing many young and minority voters. A big question is whether she also can maintain Biden's recent success among older voters — and stem Democrats' losses among groups such as Latino men and whites who didn't go to college. In a strategy memo released early Wednesday, Harris' campaign argues she can. She aims to do so partly by focusing on women's reproductive rights and contrasting Trump's legal problems with her history as a prosecutor. Biden's victory over Trump in 2020 was aided by his gains among whites who didn't attend college, a group that helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. Driving the news: Larry Ceisler, a Pennsylvania-based public affairs executive, said he doesn't expect Harris to match Biden's numbers in rural parts of the state. But, he said, Harris "is going to boost turnout and support from African American voters, diverse voters and younger voters." "It could be a net positive for the ticket," Ceisler said. Another thing that might help in must-win Pennsylvania: Harris is considering Josh Shapiro, the state's popular Democratic governor, as her running mate. Putting him on the ticket could alter the calculus there. What they're saying: In its memo, Harris' campaign argues that she's positioned to expand Biden's winning coalition from 2020. "Her net favorability is 19 points higher than Trump's among white, college-educated voters, and 18 points higher than Trump's among voters over 65," the Harris campaign writes. It also claims that the roughly 7% of voters who remain undecided are "disproportionately Black, Latino and under 30" — voting populations more likely to favor Harris. By the numbers: Few polls have been released since Biden left the race Sunday and Harris jumped in. Reuters released a national poll Tuesday showing Harris with a 2-point lead over Trump, (44%-42%). The same poll the previous week had Trump with a 2-point lead, suggesting that the Democrats' candidate switch led Trump to lose ground instead of picking up a post-convention bump. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll indicates that Harris' entry reset the race, which the poll says is statistically tied. Swing-state polls are done less frequently, and don't yet reflect the historic twists and turns of the past two weeks. The latest batch showed Trump ahead in most of the six states likely to decide the election — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In a New York Times/Siena College poll — taken before Biden dropped out and the assassination attempt against Trump — Harris fared better than Biden, and was essentially tied with Trump in Pennsylvania. Harris also polled stronger than Biden with Black voters and younger voters. In Michigan, Real Clear Politics found that Trump led by about 2 points from an average of Trump-Harris polls. State of play: Trump's team is zeroing in on the three "Blue Wall" states, with a particular eye on Pennsylvania. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, plans to campaign frequently in Pennsylvania in the next few months, hoping to use his background as a Rust Belt native to woo working-class voters. Zoom in: Harris could try to neutralize Vance with her own VP selection. Besides Shapiro, Democratic Govs. Roy Cooper (North Carolina) and Andy Beshear (Kentucky) are VP contenders with broad appeal among moderate Democrats. Harris "and whoever her running mate is are going to have to work Pennsylvania very hard," Ceisler said. "She's going to have to introduce herself to the electorate — and she can't let herself be painted as some far-left 'woke' activist from San Francisco, because she's not." What to watch: The "Blue Wall" states aren't the only places where Harris' emerging coalition will be tested. Democratic strategist Tony Cani, the Biden campaign's Arizona deputy director in 2020, said recent Democratic victories relied on high turnout among young voters and people of color. He's hoping Harris will re-engage those voters who were on the fence about Biden, who trailed Trump by several points in Arizona polls. The bottom line: Tharon Johnson, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist, said the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign was successful because of its broad coalition of voters. "She's got to extend that hand to that working-class ... moderate [and] independent voters that I think are actually up for grabs," Johnson said.

PENNSYLVANIA - As Kamala Harris emerges as the likely candidate for the Democratic Party's nominee, speculation grows over which running mate could help her win the 2024 Election.

President Joe Biden announced his exit in a letter posted to social media on Sunday, followed by his endorsement of Harris.