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Kamala Harris is doing better among young and Hispanic voters than President Biden did.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
After all the political tumult of the last month, Thursday’s latest New York Times/Siena College poll is full of findings unlike any we’ve seen this cycle, with one exception: who leads the presidential race.
The poll found Donald J. Trump ahead of Kamala Harris by one percentage point, 48 percent to 47 percent, among likely voters. Other than the name of the Democratic candidate, “Trump +1” is a result that could have been from any other Times/Siena poll before President Biden’s disastrous debate.
But on question after question, there are major shifts from previous Times-Siena polls, which were all taken before Vice President Harris essentially locked up her party’s nomination for president, before the Republican convention, and before the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump. Even the one-point Harris deficit represents a significant improvement for Democrats from Mr. Biden’s six-point deficit in our last Times/Siena poll.
As I have written, these events make it hard to know what to make of the results of recent polls, including this one. The survey is a useful marker of where the race stands now, but there’s no reason to be confident that this is where the race will stand once the dust settles.
While the overall result between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump may look familiar, the poll is full of signs that there’s a lot of dust still in the political air.
- Mr. Trump hits a high in popularity. Overall, 48 percent of registered voters say they have a favorable view of him, up from 42 percent in our last poll (taken after the debate but before the convention and assassination attempt). It’s his highest favorable number in a Times/Siena poll, which previously always found his favorable ratings between 39 percent and 45 percent.
- Ms. Harris is surging. In fact, her ratings have increased even more than Mr. Trump’s. Overall, 46 percent of registered voters have a favorable view of her, up from 36 percent when we last asked about her in February. Only 49 percent have an unfavorable view, down from 54 percent in our last measure. As important, her favorable rating is higher than Mr. Biden’s. In fact, it’s higher than his standing in any Times/Siena poll since September 2022, which so happens to be the last time Mr. Biden led a Times/Siena national poll of registered voters.
- The national political environment is a little brighter. The share of voters who say the country is on the “right track” is up to 27 percent — hardly a bright and smiley public, but still the highest since the midterm elections in 2022. Mr. Biden’s approval and favorable ratings are up as well. The ranks of the double haters have dwindled: With both Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump riding high, the number of voters who dislike both candidates has plunged to 8 percent, down from 20 percent in Times/Siena polls so far this year.
Donald Trump, with JD Vance, has reached a high in favorability in Times-Siena polling.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
With all of these underlying changes in the attitudes about the candidates, there’s no reason to assume that this familiar Trump +1 result means that the race has simply returned to where it stood before the debate. For now, these developments have mostly canceled out, but whether that will still be true in a few weeks is much harder to say.
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