The latest presidential poll shows Democrat nominee Kamala Harris has taken her biggest lead over Republican Donald Trump.
The poll from Yahoo News/YouGov shows Harris leading Trump by 5 percentage points – 50% to 45% among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup. The poll was one of the first conducted after the Sept. 10 debate, the initial meeting between the Vice President and Trump since President Joe Biden exited the race on July 21. She leads by a similar margin when third-party candidates are included – 48% to 44% – and when only likely voters are included, 49% to 45%.
According to Yahoo News, the numbers are the best showing for Harris after two separate polls – one following the Democratic convention and one after Biden’s exit – showed her essentially tied with Trump. The poll was conducted before the latest apparent assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Overall, 49% of those polled said they had either a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Harris compared to 42% who said the same about Trump. Harris’s VP pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, had a 39% approval rating compared to Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, whose favorability rating was 31%. Both VP candidates scored in the mid to low 20% range for respondents who said they didn’t know enough about either man to form an opinion.
Forty-one percent of those polled said they approved of the job Harris has done as VP compared to 47% who said they disapproved. Forty-seven percent said they approved of the job Trump did as president compared to 48% who disapproved.
In individual issues, respondents said they thought Harris would do a better job of handling abortion and Democracy issues while Trump received higher figures for dealing with the cost of living, crime and immigration.
The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,755 adults who were interviewed online from Sept. 11-13. The margin of error is approximately 2.9%.
