With just over two weeks until the presidential election, multiple major polls are reporting a narrowing lead for Vice President Harris, as former President Trump’s polling average has risen to 46%.
Since President Biden left the race in July, Harris has held a small but steady lead over Trump. Yet, she has underperformed in key categories, specifically black and latino voters. Meanwhile, Trump leads in key working-class demographics, but he trails Harris by 14 points with women, according to a New York Times (Lean Left bias) poll.
While polling averages have stayed relatively steady since the appointment of Harris as the Democratic nominee, voices on both the left and right have fixated on the changes within the percentages. Voices on the right emphasized Trump’s lead among men and veterans, whereas voices on the left focused on Harris’s appeals to disillusioned Republicans and Trump’s attempts to appeal to women.
A Newsmax (Right bias) columnist wrote about Harris’s “problem with veterans,” citing a Pew Research Center (Center bias) poll that reported 61% of veteran voters favor Trump. The writer claimed, “The Biden-Harris administration has delivered foreign policy disasters — the lethally botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Hamas massacre of more than a thousand Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, and the extension of the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East throughout 2024. Veterans, in particular, know the cost of failed leadership.”
A writer for USA Today (Lean Left bias) argued a different Republican candidate should be dominating in the polls. “As much as you can critique people like DeSantis, Haley and Vance for their flaws, they tend to fall under the category of more traditional political baggage. Trump, on the other hand, is an exception to those norms.” He added, “To earn the vote of conservatives like me, the GOP needs to move on from Trump.”
A writer for The Federalist (Right bias) blamed the Democrat’s attempts to appeal to black voters as the reason black men favor Trump, writing, “Harris plays the identity politics game, pretending she’s authentic but changing her accent and mannerisms whenever she enters a different environment. However, when you question the substance of her advocacy and question her authenticity, especially as a black man, you’re the one who will be chastised for attempting to treat her the same way as any other person who is seeking power in office.”
An article from The Nation (Left bias) highlighted Trump’s lack of popularity with women voters, writing, “Donald Trump is very worried about his unpopularity with women—as well he should be. The gender gap is Trump’s weak point as a candidate, a problem he is singularly ill-equipped to solve,” continuing with “It’s not surprising that Trump’s approach to the gender gap is so openly scornful and bitter. He is a lifelong misogynist whose sexism has served him well. Trump’s goal is clearly not to decrease the gender gap he has with women but to increase the gap with men, which would in fact improve his standing in the polls.”
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