Harris holds thin lead over Trump as DNC approaches: poll

Vice President Harris is holding a narrow lead over former President Trump ahead of the Democratic National Convention next week, according to a new poll.

The ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found Harris has 49 percent of support among registered voters while Trump has 45 percent and 5 percent said they would back someone else. This shows Harris pulling ahead, as a previous ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted last month showed President Biden and Trump tied at 46 percent of support each.  

Harris also holds a thin lead over Trump when third-party candidates are added to the mix. The poll showed Harris with 47 percent of support, Trump with 44 percent of support and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with 5 percent of support. Cornel West, an independent presidential candidate, and Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, each received 1 percent of support.

The poll also found more enthusiasm among voters for the candidates leading into November’s race. Forty-four percent said they are satisfied with a Harris-Trump matchup next fall, which is up from the 28 percent who said the same of a Biden-Trump race last month.

The poll also found that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who Harris selected as her running mate earlier this month, is seen as more favorable than Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who Trump chose as his potential vice president.  

The poll found that 39 percent of respondents said they either have a “strongly” or “somewhat” positive view of Walz while 32 percent said the same of Vance.

The poll comes ahead of the Democratic National Convention kicking off this week in Chicago. In the weeks since launching her campaign, Harris has garnered enthusiastic support among Democrats and voters that she will be aiming to keep up this week.

She has also closed the gap between her and Trump in numerous national and swing-state polls. According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average, she has a 1.8 percentage point lead over Trump based on an aggregate of 120 polls.

The ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll l was conducted among 2,336 respondents on Aug. 9-13. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points for the full sample.