Harris vs. Trump: What the early post-Biden polls tell us

President Biden’s historic announcement that he was dropping his 2024 reelection bid has shaken up a race that had mostly stayed static until the past month.

Polls have begun to trickle out in the days since Biden’s decision, offering clues to what a contest between Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, and former President Trump will look like.

Overall, they have shown good news for Harris and the Democrats. In several polls, Harris has performed at least somewhat better than Biden did against Trump before the incumbent stepped aside. But election forecasts remain offline while analysts recalibrate their models for a new match-up, meaning time is needed to better understand what these numbers signify for November.

Scott Tranter, the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), said he could make an argument that either Trump or Harris is in the preferable position in the race, underscoring how up in the air the race is.

“I could probably give you one or two good points, case for either of them, and that’s the mark of a true 50-50 race,” he said.

In the weeks leading up to Biden’s calamitous debate with Trump just more than a month ago, the general trend for polls had been the two candidates locked in a tight match-up nationally, with Trump arguably ahead slightly. He had a clearer advantage across the roughly half-dozen battleground states that will likely decide the winner of the election.

That began to shift somewhat after the debate, with Trump taking more of a lead in national and state polling. Some polls of more traditionally liberal-leaning states, such as New Hampshire and Maine, also started showing Biden’s lead over Trump decreasing, giving Republicans hope that they could be in play and expand their map. 

Trump’s lead in national polling especially grew as calls mounted both publicly and privately within the Democratic Party for Biden to step aside as the nominee. The GOP nominee led in the national polling average from Decision Desk HQ and The Hill by 3.3 points on July 21, the day Biden announced he would end his reelection bid. 

Trump had not previously enjoyed a lead that large during the race. 

After Biden dropped out, the election forecast models went dark. Trump leads Harris in the DDHQ national polling average by 2 points, but this includes relatively few polls released since last Sunday.

Democratic rallying around Harris as the likely nominee has been swift over the past week, starting with Biden’s prompt endorsement of her shortly after announcing the end of his run. And that has seemed to be reflected in some of the polls that have come out over the past week showing greater support for the Democratic candidate.

One of the first national polls to be released after Harris threw her hat in the ring showed her ahead of Trump nationwide. She led by 2 points in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was within the margin of error. The same poll taken one week prior had Trump up on Biden by 2 and tied with Harris. 

Just as notable, Harris led by 4 points in a three-way race including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — in many instances when Biden had led Trump in a head-to-head match-up, the 45th president’s position relative to Biden improved when respondents could choose among additional candidates.

A majority of respondents said Harris is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” 7 points higher than the percentage that said the same about Trump. Meanwhile, only a fifth said the same about Biden. 

A poll released Thursday from The New York Times and Siena College, which FiveThirtyEight ranked as the most trustworthy pollster, gave Trump a 1-point lead, 48 percent support to 47 percent, among likely voters. The lead ticks up to 2 points among registered voters. Both are much narrower than the 6-point lead among likely voters and 9-point lead among registered voters that Trump had in the last poll taken before Biden dropped out. 

Similarly, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found Trump and Harris almost exactly even, with Trump up 1 point. 

As some of these polls started coming out, Trump’s pollster issued a memo predicting a “Harris Honeymoon” phase that would see her poll numbers rise as she receives widespread media coverage. But he said the phase will be temporary and not change the “fundamentals” of the race. 

Tranter agreed Harris is in a “honeymoon phase” but noted that what could be key is how long the phase lasts. He said even if it lasts just 60 days, early voting will have started already. He said Harris has the momentum, which can be reversed, but it could still impact the results. 

Surveys of the key battleground states have also shown Harris performing competitively with Trump, in certain cases improving on Biden’s numbers in states that were getting a bit further away from his reach. 

A survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill released last week showed Trump leading Harris in most of the key states, but within the margin of error in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, the last of which Biden had been regularly trailing Trump in throughout the campaign. Trump and Harris were tied in Wisconsin, and he led by 5 points in Arizona. 

Across the board, these numbers are a significant improvement for Democrats compared to a similar survey from earlier this month with Biden; Harris outperformed Biden by 3 points in Michigan and Pennsylvania, 4 points in Arizona and Wisconsin and 5 points in Georgia. 

Fox News polls of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — three states that gave Trump the presidency in 2016 before flipping back to Biden in 2020 — found the race similarly competitive. Trump was up 1 point in Wisconsin and tied with Harris in Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

Tranter pointed to polling of bluer states such as Virginia and Minnesota “snapping back” toward Harris at least initially, after some had shown signs Trump was possibly making inroads in them against Biden. 

“At the national level, we have Harris is still trailing Trump, but at a much smaller margin than Biden was trailing Trump,” he said. “So that indicates that we should see that trend continue down at the individual battleground states.”

At the same time the race has tightened, both Harris and Trump have experienced boosts in their popularity. 

Trump’s favorability rating from the DDHQ and The Hill average reached 45 percent in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on him at his Pennsylvania rally this month, while his unfavorable rating has fallen from 57 percent to 51 percent.

Harris’s rating rose particularly as calls for Biden to step aside mounted, reaching 44 percent in the polling average. The polling of the past week has observed this increase, and 7 in 10 Democratic respondents in the Times/Siena poll said they want the party to consolidate around Harris. 

Tranter said Harris’s favorability numbers are better than Biden’s but still not much ahead of Trump. Both are slightly underwater with their favorability but within range of each other. 

Still, all of these numbers were taken before the Trump-Harris race could fully get underway. Harris is just starting to ramp up her campaign with rallies and ads, and Republicans are still honing their attacks on her after previously having been running against a different candidate. 

Harris campaigning could raise her numbers further, or the attacks could cause them to drop. 

“There’s quite a few more innings left in this campaign cycle for these numbers to move either up or down, but I would say it’s equal chance they go up as they go down,” Tranter said.