WASHINGTON: US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is leading former Republican President Donald Trump in three battleground states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — by four points, according to polls by The New York Times and Siena College.
Harris leads Trump by four percentage points in those three states, 50% to 46% among likely voters in each state, according to polls conducted Aug. 5-9.
The margin of sampling error among likely voters was plus or minus 4.8 percentage points in Michigan, plus or minus 4.2 points in Pennsylvania and plus or minus 4.3 points in Wisconsin, the report added. In total, 1,973 likely voters were interviewed for those polls.
Democratic US President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid on July 21 and endorsed Harris for the November 5 vote against Trump after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June.
Harris's inauguration has reinvigorated a campaign that had been seriously flagging amid Democrats' doubts about Biden's chances of defeating Trump or his ability to continue governing if he had won.
US support for Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of people and sparked a humanitarian crisis, has sparked large protests and opposition against the Biden administration in those states, especially Michigan, by some liberal, Muslim-American and Arab-American groups.
Some 200,000 people in those three states were “low-key” in their support for Biden in the Democratic primary, citing Gaza policy. Harris has made some forceful public comments on Palestinian human rights and has expressed a change of tone, though she has not shown substantial policy differences with Biden on Gaza.
Polls showed Trump had built up a lead over Biden, even in battleground states, after Biden's debate performance, but Harris' entry into the race has changed the dynamic.
An Ipsos poll released Thursday showed Harris leading Trump nationally 42% to 37% in the race for the Nov. 5 election. That national online survey of 2,045 American adults was conducted Aug. 2-7 and had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
