Harris and Trump virtually neck and neck in 2024 election home stretch: poll – SABC News

According to a nationwide poll by the New York Times and Siena College, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, are virtually neck and neck in the final weeks of the election.

According to the poll released on Sunday, Trump is one percentage point ahead of Harris, 48 ​​percent to 47 percent. This difference is well within the poll's margin of error of three percentage points. A victory in the election on November 5 is therefore quite achievable for either candidate.

Although Trump's campaign went through a relatively rocky phase in the weeks following Democratic President Joe Biden's exit in July, recent opinion polls suggest that the core of his voter base will not disappear.

In particular, the poll showed that voters feel they need to know more about Harris, while their opinions on Trump are largely set. In the poll, 28 percent of likely voters said they needed more information about the Democratic nominee, while only 9 percent said the same about Trump.

The poll suggests that Tuesday's presidential debate could be a decisive moment.

Harris will have the opportunity to explain her planned measures in more detail during the 90-minute exchange with Trump. The race is so close that even a minimal lead for one of the two candidates would be significant.

Since Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee in the summer, she has been heavily involved in the campaign trail, but has kept her spontaneous appearances and interviews with the media to a minimum.

The key figures in the latest poll are similar to those in the last comparable poll by the New York Times and Siena College, which was published in late July. There, too, Trump was up by one percentage point, a difference that is still within the margin of error.

Polls in the seven crucial swing states that are likely to determine the election winner also consistently showed a razor-thin race.