WASHINGTON: US Vice President Kamala Harris leads Republican rival Donald Trump by 5 percentage points in a poll NBC News poll released Sunday that found respondents began to view her more favorably since she emerged as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Asked about their opinions of Harris since she became the nominee, 48% of the 1,000 registered voters surveyed said they were positive compared with 32% in July, the biggest jump among ratings of politicians surveyed by NBC since President George W. Bush's popularity surged after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Asked about Trump, 40% of respondents said they viewed him positively, compared with 38% in July, according to the news network. The poll, conducted Sept. 13-17, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
An aside CBS News The poll also found Harris leading Trump by 4 percentage points, 52% to 48%, among likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
The results are broadly consistent with other recent national surveys, including those of Reuters/Ipsoswhich show a close race ahead of the November 5 elections.
While national polls offer important signals about voter opinions, state-by-state Electoral College results determine the winner, and a handful of battleground states will likely be decisive.
Trump, 78, is making his third consecutive bid for the White House after losing to Joe Biden in 2020, whom he continues to falsely blame for widespread voter fraud as he faces federal and state criminal charges over attempts to overturn the election results.
Harris, 59, is a former U.S. senator and attorney general who is currently serving in the Biden administration. She would be the first woman to serve as president in the country's 248-year history.
“She's been able to turn this around from a race that was a referendum on Joe Biden to a race that's a referendum on Donald Trump,” said Amy Walter, editor and publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. NBC's “Meet the Press.”
In CBSAccording to a poll of 3,129 registered voters conducted Sept. 18-20, Harris rose 2 percentage points after a 50-50 split in August, bolstered by her performance in the Sept. 10 debate and encouraging economic news.
