Harris vs. Trump: The Presidential Race Heats Up as Polls Tighten

Vice President Kamala Harris has drawn level with her opponent in the presidential race, former president Donald Trump, according to an FT analysis of the latest data. President Joe Biden withdrew from the elections on July 21 after a very poor performance against Trump in the debate held between them. After his withdrawal from the race, Kama Harris was endorsed immediately. Since then, Harris has wiped out her party’s national polling deficit against her rival.

While Biden trailed behind Trump by 3 percentage points, on the day he dropped out of the White House race, Harris and Trump are now neck to neck in the battle. Ultimately, US elections are decided by the Electoral College, and therefore a small subset of winners take all states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

In all these 6 battlegrounds, Harris’s recent polling represents a 1 to 3-point improvement over Biden’s before he dropped out a week ago. He was trailing by 2 or more points in all these 6 states. After Harris came into the picture, she and Trump are going at 50-50 points head to head thus increasing the statistical heat in the country.

Harris has also made gains in nearly every demographic group since her President’s withdrawal, according to the analysts. Her support has increased among the Black, Latino, young, and female voters, and the independents. She has only become marginally weak in one group, voters over the age of 50.

Predictive analysts have noticed that Harris has eclipsed Biden’s pre-debate price on two prediction markets, one being polymarket and another being PredictIt, though according to the total masses, she is still the underdog against Trump.

With less than 100 days until the election starts, Harris has injected a whole new enthusiasm among the Democrat’s campaign previously quite demoralized by their current president’s performance.

Of those who had voted for Biden previously in 2020, 73% of them have agreed to vote for Harris as per reports. Additionally, the percentage of voters who disagreed to vote for Biden again dropped from 10 percent to 3 percent showing an improvement. 

To put the cherry on the cake, Harris’ campaign released a statement that it had managed to raise a record $200 million in the last week.