Harris’s lead over Trump slips to 1 point in new national survey

Vice President Harris’s lead over former President Trump has narrowed in the latest national poll from Suffolk University and USA Today.

The poll, released Monday, shows Harris leading Trump by 1 point, 45 percent support to 44 percent, among likely voters nationally. No other candidate receives more than 1 percentage point of support, while approximately 5 percent of respondents say they remain undecided, and 3 percent refuse to answer.

The 1-point margin is a shift from the same survey conducted in August, shortly after the Democratic National Convention. Then, Harris led Trump by approximately 4 points, which rounded to 48 percent support for Harris and 43 percent for Trump.

The new poll follows a similar trajectory to that of the national polling average from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill, which shows Harris with a 1.2-point lead over Trump, 49 percent support to 47.8 percent. That represents a narrowing in the margins between the two candidates since last month, when the polling average often had Harris polling 4 points ahead of the Republican candidate nationally.

USA Today noted that between the two polls, Harris lost ground among Latino voters and Black voters. Latino voters in the latest poll support Trump over Harris (49 percent support to 38 percent), and Black voters favor Harris over Trump (72 percent to 17 percent), which is a smaller advantage than usual for Democrats.

USA Today reported that the margin of error for Latino and Black voters is high — 9 percentage points — making it difficult to track how big of a change there’s been in voter sentiment.

The latest survey was released with two weeks to go before Election Day. Both campaigns have ramped up their efforts in the seven battleground states, where polls show Harris and Trump neck and neck.

The survey was conducted Oct. 14-18 and included 1,000 likely voters. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.