US presidential election 2024: Harris draws on almost record-breaking enthusiasm | US elections 2024

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Kamala Harris's entry into the presidential race has given Democratic voters a new boost, and their enthusiasm for the presidency is now near record levels, according to new polling data.

While Gallup's numbers suggest rising enthusiasm among all voters – including Republicans – over the past five months, comparable numbers show a much stronger increase among Democrats, suggesting that Harris's replacement of Joe Biden as presidential candidate is the likely driving factor.

The growing enthusiasm comes as Harris is doing better in general polls than Biden, who dropped out of the race last month after a poor performance in the debate, pushing his already stagnant poll numbers against Donald Trump even lower.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday puts Harris ahead of Trump by 45 percent nationally, with a 41 percent lead. That lead is consistent with other polls since the turbulent Democratic convention in Chicago last week, which confirmed the U.S. vice president as the nominee.

Harris' numbers since then have generally expanded the small lead she had built since rising to the top of the Democratic ticket in July, suggesting that her standing has been further boosted by the traditional post-convention boost that presidential candidates typically experience.

The impact of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to suspend his independent presidential campaign and endorse Trump this week is unclear, as Reuters/Ipsos and other recent polls were still in process at the time of his announcement on Aug. 23. The Trump campaign claims the endorsement will boost the former president's chances, even though Kennedy's once-high poll numbers had dropped to about 5% before his withdrawal.

But the outcome of the November 5 election will be crucial to the situation in certain key swing states, and here too Harris is showing a clear improvement over Biden before he dropped out of the race.

A Fox News poll on Thursday found the vice president with narrow leads in three of four southern Sun Belt states: 48 to 47 percent in Arizona and 48 to 46 percent in Georgia and Nevada. In the fourth state, North Carolina – where Trump won by just 1.4 percent in 2020 – the Republican candidate was ahead by just one percentage point, 48 to 47 percent.

The poll represents a big jump from Biden's recent numbers, which left him six points behind in Georgia in April and five points behind Trump in Nevada and Arizona in June.

In addition, the action sparked an angry reaction from Trump's campaign team, which sharply criticized the numbers in a statement, making it clear how high the risk was.

“It's that time of year again. Fox is releasing terrible poll numbers,” the campaign said. “President Trump continues to outperform poll numbers from previous cycles.”

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The statement said Trump's current support levels are higher in Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina than they were at the corresponding times in the 2020 election, which he ultimately lost to Biden.

In three other crucial swing states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – sometimes misleadingly referred to as the “Rust Belt” – the candidates are neck and neck, according to various polls.

In this neck-and-neck race, Harris is hoping to capitalize on Democratic voters' newfound enthusiasm for her candidacy. According to the Gallup poll, this enthusiasm exceeds that of Republican Trump voters and could be an additional incentive for many voters to go to the polls.

About 78 percent of Democratic voters told Gallup polls they would like to vote for Harris as their front-runner, a dramatic increase from the 55 percent who said the same thing last March when Biden was the nominee, at a time when concerns about his age were already widespread.

Republican voters’ enthusiasm for Trump has increased more moderately over the same period, from 59 to 64 percent.

“Democrats and independent Democratic-leaning voters are the primary cause of the rise in enthusiasm nationally,” wrote Jeffrey M. Jones of Gallup in a commentary explaining the new numbers.

The Democrats' current enthusiasm, Jones added, is only one percentage point below the 21st century high for that group, as reported by Gallup's poll report, which was 79 percent in February 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were vying for the party's presidential nomination.

However, high motivation does not necessarily mean that Harris will win, as Trump's supporters are also enthusiastic. However, a high voter turnout could be a guarantee of this.

“Due to increased voter awareness and enthusiasm from both parties, voter turnout could exceed 2020, when two-thirds of all eligible U.S. adults cast their ballots – the highest in over 100 years,” Jones concluded.