Harris wins now- polls prove
Slisco 7/27—Newsweek reporter (Aila Slisco. “Kamala Harris Lands Fifth Polling Win in 24 Hours." Newsweek, 7/27/24, https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-lands-fifth-polling-win-24-hours-1931015, 7/27/24)//SRS
A released on Friday by The Wall Street Journal found that Harris had all but eliminated Trump's lead, with the vice president trailing the former president by a 49 percent to 47 percent margin in a head-to-head matchup. The poll has a 3.1 percent margin of error.
When independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy is included, the poll found that Harris overtakes Trump and has a slight lead, 45 percent to 44 percent. Kennedy was the choice of only 4 percent of respondents, while 5 percent were undecided.
President , who dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21, was losing to Trump by 6-point margins in both head-to-head and multi-candidate versions of the Wall Street Journal poll taken earlier this month.
While early polling suggests that a Trump-Harris contest will likely be close, the momentum seems to have quickly shifted to Harris. The vice president has amassed mostly small but significant gains in at least four other polls of battleground states and young voters on Thursday and Friday.
Dan Lamb, a senior lecturer at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, told Newsweek,"Harris won the week with strong speeches, viral social media" and important endorsements, predicting that her polling position may improve further in the near future.
"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 added. "After that comes the DNC convention. The next several weeks could be very favorable for her polling."
Grant Davis Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that he was "not surprised to see the race tighten a bit" because "Harris is not Biden, and Biden was on a pretty bad glide path."
"Harris also has some of the traits that a lot of were looking for," Reeher said. "Her early performance has been good, and she's picking up some good endorsements. The money is coming in. All this has been widely reported in the press, which furthers the impression of new viability."