Former President Donald Trump surged ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris nationally in a poll released on Sunday and the survey’s findings did not go over well with some of his most vocal opponents.
A New York Times/Sienna College poll conducted from Sept. 3 to Sept. 6 that surveyed 1,695 registered voters found Trump ahead of Harris nationally 48 percent to 47 percent. Additionally, the poll found the two candidates were statistically tied in the seven battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The first major poll conducted and released since Harris accepted her party’s nomination and as she officially began to campaign saw her slip. A previous Times/Sienna poll found Harris on top 49-46.
Highest-rated pollster in the country and a large sample size, too. Fortunately for Harris she has the debate this week and none of this will matter if she has a good night.https://t.co/X77LYVdtVq
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 8, 2024
Kamala Harris no longer even has a national lead in the latest NYT/Siena poll. https://t.co/f5qQnqCgmV
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) September 8, 2024
A new national NYT/Siena poll finds Trump leading Harris 48% to 47% — the first time Trump’s led nationally in any major non-partisan national poll in ~3 weeks.
We’ll wait for more data to see if this is a blip or the start of a reversion, but NYT/Siena is an excellent pollster. pic.twitter.com/8VQK8RYCjB
— Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) September 8, 2024
Nate Cohn with the Times questioned whether Harris had “stalled” after what he called a “euphoric August” in which her new candidacy grabbed all the attention away from Trump. In July, the former president was grazed in the ear by a would-be assassin’s bullet. He also appeared comfortably ahead of President Joe Biden in numerous polls before the 81-year-old dropped his reelection bid.
Cohn assessed Sunday’s survey could be an outlier, and a former aide to Harris, Mike Nellis, dismissed the implications of the result, saying the election right now is “a coin flip.”
But such caveats did not assuage concerns among some that Harris is in trouble, and that Trump’s continuing support in any amount is enough to give them the ick.
Cohn told the Times‘ readers Sunday, “There’s no way to know whether the Times/Siena poll is too favorable for Mr. Trump. We never know whether the polls are “right” until the votes are counted. But the poll nonetheless finds that he has significant advantages in this election — and they might just be enough to put him over the top.
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