Kamala Harris has gained 23 points in a new poll, leaving her 9 points ahead of Donald Trump.
A poll questioning independents, carried out by NPRS/PBS News/Marist, found that 53 percent supported Harris and 44 percent backed Trump.
This 9-point lead is a huge jump from the 14 points she was down in Marist‘s July poll, which found 46 percent of independents for Trump and 32 percent for Harris.
The August survey, published on Tuesday, was carried out among 1,613 adults between August 1 and August 4 and has a disclaimed margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points. The July survey questioning 1,309 adults was carried out on July 22 and has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Overall, Marist’s most recent poll shows Harris has a 51 percent lead on Trump after pollsters spoke to 1,513 registered voters.
Harris is taking the lead in multiple polls after Joe Biden pulled out and endorsed her as the Democratic nominee.
Polling aggregator 538 puts Harris at 45.2 percent, 1.8 percentage points ahead of Trump’s 43.4 percent.
Harris is also ahead with 47.4 percent above Trump’s 46.9 percent on Polling aggregator RealClear.
Despite this, Harris still believes she and her newly revealed running mate Tim Walz are the “underdogs.”
Speaking at a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, she announced her official nomination as the Democratic candidate, and said, “So now we have some work to do. We need to move to the general election and win that. And to all the friends listening, we also need to level set. We are the underdogs in this race. But we have the momentum and I know exactly what we’re up against.”
Harris has been broadly polling much better than Biden was, and since announcing her running mate she has surpassed Biden’s peak odds of winning the election, according to the betting odds platform Polymarket.
Pollster Nate Silver, whose statistical model compiles the results of statewide polls and weights them based on reliability, found that Harris took the lead in the race on July 30 when she closed the gap with Trump, and has been moving further away from him ever since.
Harris has used the “underdog” term to describe herself and her voters before, including at a rally in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on July 27.
“We have a fight ahead of us, and we are the underdogs in the race,” she said. “But this is a people-powered campaign, and we have momentum.”
AP
