The buzz around Kamala boosts her past Trump.
Slisco 7/26 [Aila Slisco; Aila Slisco is a Newsweek night reporter based in New York. Her focus is on reporting national politics, where she has covered the 2020 and 2022 elections, the impeachments of Donald Trump and multiple State of the Union addresses; 7-26-2024; Kamala Harris lands fifth polling win in 24 hours; Newsweek; https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-lands-fifth-polling-win-24-hours-1931015; 7-27-2024; AO]
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 Joe Biden, 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."