Support for Trump, Harris nearly tied, at the expense of RFK Jr: Pew

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris are virtually tied in a new national poll, while independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped into single digits.

A Pew Research Center survey, released Wednesday, found that if the election were held today, Harris would shore up 46 percent support from registered voters. Trump followed closely behind with 45 percent, Kennedy brought in 7 percent of the vote and 1 percent picked none or other.

Harris’s entrance into the race following President Biden’s withdrawal last month appeared to cost support for Kennedy, whose numbers fell by more than half — down from 15 percent last month, Pew Research noted.

Trump led Biden 44 percent to 40 percent in last month’s survey.

The survey is the latest of several polls showing Harris’s momentum against Trump, most notably in the battleground states, since replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. She has energized the party’s base, with various polls suggesting the vice president has narrowed the lead Trump maintained when facing Biden.

Trump has brushed off the surge for Harris and suggested the “honeymoon” phase will end.

Pew Research found 62 percent of those who said they will vote for Harris “strongly” support her as the candidate, while 64 percent of Trump supporters said the same about him. This is a shift for the Democratic ticket since last month, when just 43 percent of Biden supporters strongly backed the incumbent and 63 percent said the same for Trump.

Motivation for voting was similar among both Harris and Trump supporters, with 70 percent of the vice president’s supporters saying they are “extremely motivated” to vote in November, 7 points higher than Biden supporters last month.

Roughly 72 percent of Trump supporters said they are extremely motivated to vote, up 9 points from last month.

In the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill national polling average, Harris leads Trump with 48.2 percent support to his 46.8 percent. In polls that include third-party candidates, the Democratic nominee’s national polling average lead widens over her GOP rival — 47.3 percent support to Trump’s 43.5 percent. Kennedy has 3.1 percent, per the index.

The Pew Research Center survey was conducted among 9,201 adults, including 7,569 registered voters, from Aug. 5-11. The margin of error for the full sample is 1.3 percentage points.