Trump against Harris: Who is ahead in the polls?

In the race to win the Nov. 5 presidential election, Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump 47% to 42%. This advantage has grown after a debate between the two candidates that voters largely believed she won, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that ended on Thursday.

In the two-day survey, Harris’s lead among registered voters was five percentage points, which is somewhat more than the four points she held over Trump in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from August 21–28.

53% of voters who said they had heard at least something about Tuesday’s debate claimed Harris had won, 24% claimed Trump had, and the other votes either had not heard anything at all or had not responded. About 52% of people who saw the debate stated that Trump faltered and didn’t look intelligent, whereas 21% said the same about Harris. Five percent of Republican supporters thought Trump lacked intelligence.

In a heated presidential debate, Harris,59, placed Trump,78, on the defensive by attacking his suitability for office and his numerous legal issues, bringing up his felony conviction for allegedly falsifying corporate records. Harris “gave the impression of having higher moral integrity,” according to 52% of respondents who were aware of the discussion, compared to 29% who felt the same way about Trump.

In addition, a lot of Republicans were dissatisfied with how their nominee performed in the Philadelphia debate. In the poll, 53% of Republicans claimed that Trump had won the debate, while 91% of Democrats declared that she had. Republicans divided on the outcome: 31% thought no one won, while 14% said Harris defeated Trump.

In the survey, 91% of registered voters claimed to have heard at least some of the debate, while 44% claimed to have heard a lot. According to Nielsen data, 67.1 million television viewers watched the debate aired by ABC News. This number exceeded the approximately 51 million viewers who watched Trump debate then-candidate President Joe Biden in June.

The 81-year-old leader’s fellow Democrats widely called for him to withdraw his re-election attempt after his appalling performance in the debate, which he eventually did in July. As the more senior of the two candidates, Trump is now viewed as being too old to serve in government by 52% of voters, compared to 7% who felt the same way about Harris.

In general, voters rated Harris’s demeanor more favorably than they did Trump. When asked which of the two seemed more dignified, Harris was selected by 56% of those who were familiar with the discussion, while Trump was selected by 24%. Of those surveyed, 49% thought Harris “seemed like someone who would listen to me and understand my concerns,” while only 18% thought the same of Trump.

1,690 American adults in all were polled for the poll, 1,405 of whom were registered voters. For registered voters, the margin of error was approximately three percentage points.

State-by-state results of the Electoral College determine the winner, with a few battleground states likely to be pivotal, while nationwide surveys, such as those conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, provide significant signals regarding the opinions of the people.