Harris Widens Lead After Debate

ActiVote’s September 18, 2024 presidential poll finds that Vice President Harris has a lead of 5.4% on former President Trump. The poll was in the field between September 11 and September 17 (median field date of September 14). The poll was among 1000 likely presidential election voters and has an average expected error of 3.1%.

Trump leads among rural voters, while Harris leads among suburban and urban voters. Harris leads among younger voters, and especially among the youngest voters, while Trump has a narrow lead among the elderly.. 

Harris leads among women, while Trump leads among men. Both get about 85% of those affiliated (30 states) or estimated to be affiliated (20 states) with their party, while Harris has a narrow lead among independents. Trump leads among White voters, while Harris gets 88% of the Black vote and a (small) majority of Latino voters. 

There are only small differences between income and education categories. Trump has small leads among those with low and middle incomes and those with less than a 4-year college degree, while Harris leads comfortably among high income and highly educated voters.

Political Spectrum 

The following table and graph show the support for Harris and Trump among left, moderate left, center, moderate right, and right voters. These groups are defined by splitting the national electorate in 5 equal sized groups of 20% each

Both Harris (95%) and Trump (92%) do an excellent job locking in their base. Harris has a 16% point lead among centrists.

Daily Tracking Poll

ActiVote runs (internally) a daily poll consisting of the last 1000 user responses to determine the state of the race. As soon as such a daily poll no longer overlaps in field period with our previous published poll, we publish that poll with all relevant details. The graph below shows the daily movement in the top-line result of our tracking poll, starting July 27th. It is only provided as an illustration of possible momentum in the race and overall movement over time based on ActiVote polling.

The graph suggests that Harris’ poll numbers improved steadily for about 3-4 weeks after Biden dropped out, followed by a period of 2 weeks where it hovered around a 5-point lead, which came down to a 2-3% lead around Labor day, and stayed there for a while, before starting a steady climb post the September 10 debate.

The square dots in the graph indicate published polls which can be found at our polling page.

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Check out our polling page for our latest polls. For further details see our polling methodology, AAPOR Transparency Initiative disclosures, 538 pollster rating disclosures, and accuracy analysis.