Kamala Harris Holds Lead Over Donald Trump in New National Poll

Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump nationally with just over one week to go before Election Day, according to the results of a massive new survey.

Preliminary data from the Cooperative Election Study (CES) was released on Monday and shows Harris leading Trump by 4 percentage points among 48,732 likely voters, with 51 percent of those surveyed backing the vice president and 47 percent backing the former president.

The CES is the largest academic U.S. election survey, with a total of 78,247 adults participating. Harris was leading Trump by 51 percent to 46 percent among all adults surveyed and by 52 percent to 46 percent among respondents who said that they already voted or would “definitely” vote.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email on Monday.

Unlike most other recent polls, the CES survey found that Harris had a slim lead over Trump among male likely voters, winning the demographic by 49 percent to 48 percent. The Democratic candidate was ahead with women voters by a 53 percent to 45 percent margin.

Harris also fared better than usual among white voters in the survey, with Trump winning the group by a relatively small margin of 51 percent to 47 percent. Black voters favored Harris by a 77 percent to 21 percent margin, while Hispanics backed her 58 percent to 40 percent.

Among voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2020, 95 percent said that they would be doing the same this year, with 4 percent switching their vote to Harris. Another 95 percent who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 said that they would back Harris this year, while 3 percent would vote for Trump instead.

Harris had a 51 percent to 42 percent advantage among voters who did not vote in the 2020 election. Among all likely voters, a total of 3 percent said that they remained undecided.

No margin of error was listed for the CES survey, which was administered by YouGov and conducted from October 1 to October 25. The CES will survey the same voters after the election, including “a match of respondents to voter files to identify which individuals actually turned out to vote.”

Several other recent national polls have shown a tighter race, finding that Trump and Harris are trading small leads or drawing even. An average of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight showed Harris with a 1.4 point lead as of Monday.

Polls also suggest that the election is neck-and-neck in the critical battleground states, which will likely decide the winner of the Electoral College and the presidency.

In four of the seven states considered most likely to swing the election, 0.3 points or less divided the candidates in polling aggregate FiveThirtyEight’s averages on Monday. Trump held leads of less than 2 percent in the three other battlegrounds.