(NewsNation) — The race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is nearly tied ahead of Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia.
The latest polling from the New York Times/Siena College revealed Trump leads Harris by just 1 point. Three other polls posted within the past week — RMG Research/Napolitan News National Survey (+2), Outward Intelligence survey (+4) and Emerson College Polling (+4) — all reflected Harris leading Trump.
However, Harris maintains a 3.5-point lead nationally across all polls, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s polling average.
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What’s at stake during the presidential debate?
Harris and Trump will square off Tuesday for their first presidential debate ahead of the November election. It’s also the first time the two will meet face-to-face.
As Harris maintains an average national lead over Trump, DDHQ’s latest forecast gives Harris a 56% chance of winning the presidency.
However, the election cycle had already taken unusual turns, putting added pressure on both candidates to deliver a strong performance.
Plus, when Trump debated President Joe Biden less than three months ago, the former president was facing a candidate who was trailing behind him in the polls. The situation has changed drastically heading into Tuesday’s meeting.
The new poll conducted by The New York Times/Siena College found that 28% of voters feel they still need to know more about Harris before making a voting decision while only 9% feel that way about Trump.
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It also reflected a 13-point Trump lead on the economy, while Harris maintained a 15-point lead on abortion.
Millions of Americans are expected to tune in Tuesday night to a 90-minute debate that could very well decide this election.
Harris leads nationally across the board
Harris’ lead over Trump extends across multiple national polling sites. FiveThirtyEight polling shows Harris leading Trump by 2.8 percentage points; RealClearPolitics polling reflects Harris has a 1.4-point lead; and Morning Consult polling shows Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points among likely voters.
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Gender influences polling divide
New polls show Harris faces a major challenge in winning over male voters and is losing men by a bigger margin than she’s winning women in key states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina.
The gender gap between Democrats and Republicans isn’t new, but it’s becoming especially pronounced in the toss-up race for president.
Trump’s problems with female voters are well known, but newer pollings show that Harris has just as big of a problem with male voters in some states.
Male voters have shifted toward Trump and away from Harris in Pennsylvania, one of the biggest prizes of the 2024 electoral map.
A new CNN/SSRS poll showed that Trump led Harris among likely male voters in Pennsylvania by 15 points — 55% to 40% — and Harris led Trump among female voters in the state by 11 points — 53% to 42%.
In comparison, a CNN/SSRS poll conducted in March showed Trump with a smaller lead over President Biden among male voters in Pennsylvania: 51% to 41%.
Male voters are also swinging hard to Trump and away from Harris in Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, California, Ohio and Florida.
The new survey of likely voters in Nevada showed that Trump had an 18-point lead among male voters, 57% to 39%, while Harris had a 16-point lead among female voters, 55% to 39%.
An East Carolina University poll conducted Aug. 26-28 among likely voters in North Carolina found Trump leading by 9 points among male voters — 51.6% to 42.8% — and Harris leading by nearly 5 points among female voters — 49.5% to 45.1%.
In Georgia, Trump has a 10-point lead among male voters, 53% to 43%, and Harris has a 10-point lead among female voters, 53% to 43%, according to a CNN/SSRS survey.
Even in California, a Democratic stronghold, a new survey by The Hill/Emerson College Polling shows Harris losing support among male voters, though she still maintains a sizeable lead over Trump among California’s liberal-leaning men.
Male support for Harris has dropped substantially. The 30-point advantage she enjoyed among California male voters has dropped to a 20-point advantage.
In Ohio, Trump now has a 26-point lead among men, and in Florida, he maintains a 12-point lead among men.
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How did Biden vs Trump polling compare
Biden’s performance at the first debate in June was a standout moment for Democrats who had already expressed concerns about his mental acuity. The 81-year-old stumbled through his words and appeared confused at times. Trump, 78, also faced criticism for making multiple false statements.
A CNN flash poll of debate watchers found that 67% of those surveyed said Trump won the debate, compared to 33% who said Biden won.
Biden ultimately dropped out of the race on July 21 and endorsed Harris for the party’s nomination, which she secured in August. She introduced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate soon after.
On the eve of the debate, Trump held a slender national leader of 0.4 percentage points over Biden, according to The Hill/DDHQ. Two weeks following the performance, Trump was beating Biden by 1.3 points.
By the time Biden dropped out of the race, Trump was leading Biden by 4 percentage points.
Similar patterns were seen in other polling averages. In the RealClearPolitics (RCP) average, for instance, Trump’s advantage has more than doubled, from 1.5 percentage points on June 27 to 3.3 in August.
Still, while Biden’s disastrous performance in June stole headlines, Democrats were quick to note that Trump was by no means a world-beater that night. Immediately after the debate, Biden surrogates highlighted several remarks by the former president — including on “Black jobs” and abortion being conducted “even after birth” — but they were quickly forgotten because of Biden’s self-inflicted wounds.