Vice President Kamala Harris's narrow national lead over former President Donald Trump has tightened in the wake of a well-received debate performance last week by Ohio Sen. JD Vance, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
The previous Yahoo News/YouGov survey showed Harris (50%) ahead of Trump (45%) by five percentage points immediately following September's presidential debate — her strongest showing to date in a two-way matchup among registered voters.
But now Harris (48%) edges Trump (46%) by just two points.
The new poll of 1,714 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Oct. 2 to 4, finds Harris with an even smaller advantage among registered voters when third-party candidates are included (46% to 45%). Among likely voters, the vice president’s lead vanishes entirely (47% to 47%).
It’s important to note that all Yahoo News/YouGov surveys released since Harris replaced President Biden atop the Democratic ticket have had a margin of error of about three percentage points — plus or minus — and that the gap between Harris and Trump has remained well within that range. A 48%-46% Harris lead could actually be a 51%-43% Harris lead — or a 49%-45% Trump lead. In other words, the race for president is too close to call.
Has Harris's debate bump faded?
The new Yahoo News/YouGov survey does suggest that the contest has shifted in a consistent direction with just one month left to go until Election Day — that is, back toward the statistical stalemate that prevailed before Harris's strong September debate performance gave her a temporary boost.
In August, for instance, Trump and Harris were tied at 47% among likely voters — just as they are today. Harris’s four-point September lead (49% to 45%) is gone. The other horse race results — among registered voters rather than likely voters; with or without third-party candidates — show a similar pattern.
Two other numbers suggest that this pattern reflects real (if modest) movement in the presidential race.
First of all, Harris’s favorable rating ticked up from 47% in August to 49% after the September presidential debate; today, it has slipped back down to 46%. Harris’s unfavorable rating, meanwhile, has climbed to 49%.
Secondly, the results of the so-called "generic ballot" question — If an election for U.S. Congress were being held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in the district where you live? — have consistently favored Democrats by three or four percentage points across the last few Yahoo News/YouGov polls (including the new one).
This lack of movement implies that any shifts in the presidential contest may have more to do with how voters specifically see Harris and Trump than with how they generally see the two major parties.
A good night for Vance — but did it move the needle for Trump?
The effect of last week's vice presidential debate on the presidential race was probably minimal. Persuadable voters are few and far between these days. Viewership was relatively low. Past VP meetings haven't moved the needle. And more Americans who watched the VP debate or followed news coverage afterward say the event made them think better (33%) rather than worse (26%) of Harris; fewer said the debate made them think better (26%) rather than worse (30%) of Trump.
At the same time, the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows it was a stronger night for Trump's running mate than for Harris's. Unlike snap surveys of viewers conducted immediately after the event — which mostly found that Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz debated to a draw — Yahoo News and YouGov find that 41% of Americans who either watched live or closely followed coverage afterward say Vance was the winner, compared to 32% for Walz.
Overall, both candidates’ performances were rated positively, with 59% saying Vance was excellent or good (versus 38% fair or poor) and 52% saying Walz was excellent or good (versus 46% fair or poor). But the gap between Vance’s positive numbers and negative numbers was bigger, and his excellent rating (30%) was nearly double Walz's (16%).
Vance remains relatively unpopular
Yet even a solid debate performance was not enough to erase Vance’s popularity deficit. To be sure, slightly more Americans who watched or followed coverage of the debate learned "a lot" about Vance (33%) than learned "a lot" about Walz (27%), and more say the meeting made them think better of the Republican (41%, 25% worse) than say it made them think better of the Democrat (33%, 23% worse).
But the number of U.S. adults who now view Vance favorably (37%, up from 31% in September) is still significantly lower than the number who view Walz favorably (43%, up from 39%) — and the number who view Vance unfavorably (48%) is still significantly higher than the corresponding number for Walz (40%). Put another way, Walz’s favorable rating is still three points higher than his unfavorable rating; Vance’s is still 11 points lower.
In keeping with that finding, Walz was seen as delivering better answers than Vance on abortion (49% to 30%) and January 6 (48% to 30%), while Vance was seen as more "untruthful” (42% to 33%) and more responsible for making the clash "infuriating" (35% to 26%) and "frightening" (36% to 27%).
That said, Vance's most important accomplishment last Tuesday night may have been rallying — or at least reassuring — the Republican base. Thirty-eight percent of Americans now think Trump made the right decision when he picked Vance as his running mate, up six points from 32% in late August and nearly matching the 41% who say Harris made the right choice when she picked Walz. That shift comes in large part because Republicans are now nearly as convinced that Trump was right to pick Vance (74%, up from 66% in August) as Democrats are that Harris was right to pick Walz (77%, down slightly from 81% in August).
All in all, 37% of Americans now think Vance is ready to serve as president, up seven points from 30% in late August. That’s on par with the number who think the same of Walz (38%).
Americans who watched or followed the debate enjoyed its relatively cordial tone (which stood in sharp contrast to other debates of the Trump era). Asked to describe the event by choosing from a list of adjectives, the words they selected most often were civil (55%) and informative (46%); reassuring (19%), entertaining (19%) and boring (15%) came next.
In September, 38% said the presidential debate was embarrassing; just 11% said the same of its vice presidential sequel.
____________
The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,714 U.S. adults interviewed online from Oct. 2 to 4, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to Nov. 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 27% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.9%.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
