New CNBC survey delivers terribly bad news for VP Harris' electoral ambitions

By 
 October 26, 2024

A new national survey with a particular focus on the battleground states was just released that had plenty of bad news for Vice President Kamala Harris and might have her contemplating throwing in the towel on his struggling campaign for the presidency.

That survey showed former President Donald Trump leading VP Harris both nationally and in the critical swing states, though that lead was within the margin of error, according to CNBC.

Perhaps more crucially for Harris was that Trump had substantial leads over her on the most important issues to voters like the economy, inflation, and immigration, while Harris only prevailed on less important issues like abortion and climate change or in comparisons of the candidate's personal characteristics.

Trump trusted on economic issues far more than Harris

Conducted from Oct. 15-19, the CNBC All-America Economic Survey polled 1,000 registered voters across the country, nearly 60% of whom reside in one of the seven major battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and had a margin of error that ranged from 3.1-4%.

Nationally, former President Trump leads VP Harris 48-46%, though the race appeared slightly tighter at 48-47% in favor of Trump in the battleground states.

It was on the individual issues where Trump's sizeable advantage became clear, however, as voters -- nearly three-quarters of whom rated the current Biden-Harris economy as "fair" or "poor" -- said by a margin of 42-24% that they would be "better off financially" under if Trump were president versus Harris.

Trump also enjoyed moderate to large leads on the questions of which candidate would better strengthen the economy, deal with taxes on businesses and individuals, help small businesses, handle tariffs and trade with other nations, and serve as commander-in-chief, while Harris pulled ahead on things like mental and physical health or being honest and trustworthy.

Trump's favorability rating now higher than Harris'

CNBC noted that the survey also showed that former President Trump had significant leads over VP Harris on important issues like immigration and crime and safety, while Harris led on lesser issues like abortion, climate change, health care, and protecting democracy.

Incredibly enough, the poll also revealed that Trump's net favorability has increased since a similar survey in August -- from -13 to -6 -- while Harris' has declined from -8 to -10, which doesn't sound like much until one considers that it had spiked upward to +3 in September before plummeting lower than before.

It was also discovered by the pollsters that Trump has a larger lead among male voters than Harris' lead among female voters, as well as that Harris has lost ground among minority voters while Trump has improved his standing with the same cohort.

"Trump's advantage is because he's winning men by more than he's losing women," Micah Roberts, a Republican pollster for the survey, told CNBC. "It's a difference because of younger men, and the advantage among younger men is strong, and it's just not as strong for Harris among younger women, and older women especially."

Trump is winning

That new CNBC survey was included in the calculations for the RealClearPolling average of polls, which for the first time since early August now shows former President Trump just barely ahead of VP Harris by 0.1 points, as he has overcome the roughly 2-point lead she enjoyed throughout much of the past two months.

That is decidedly bad news for Harris when that is compared to the state of the 2020 and 2016 races at the same point, when President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had respective leads of 7.8 and 5.4 points in elections that ended up with Trump overperforming the polls.

The news is even worse for Harris in the critical battleground states that typically decide modern elections, as Trump leads in all seven of them with an average advantage of around a single point.

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