Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris: What do polls say about who will win the US elections? Read here

Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris: Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris face each other in their first debate today (September 10 local time / September 11 IST).

The debate, hosted by ABC ahead of the US presidential election in November 2024, will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. In IST, that is today, September 11, at 6:30 am.

During the debate, we'll be examining how popular both candidates are with US voters. While Trump led the race against US President Joe Biden by a wide margin, Harris's takeover of the campaign led to something of a turnaround. So could Harris's initial momentum turn into a steady lead? We'll take a look.

Trump vs Harris: What do the US polls say?

According to a report in the Hindustan Times on September 10, Harris and Trump are now engaged in a “tough race.”

According to an August AP-NORC poll, Americans trust Trump slightly more than Harris on economic issues, AP reported.

According to Bloomberg, a poll released on September 8 by the New York Times and Siena College found that 28 percent of likely voters said they needed to know more about Harris, while only 9 percent did so about Trump.

In addition, more than six in 10 likely voters said the next president will represent a major change from Joe Biden – something Harris has struggled with, the Bloomberg report added. And only a quarter of respondents in the NYT/Siena poll said Harris embodies that change, while 53 percent said Trump did.

Harris narrowly leads

According to the NYT/Siena poll, Trump is ahead of Harris 48% to 47% among 1,695 registered voters. The poll was conducted from September 3 to 6. Although Trump is leading by only 1%, the poll's margin of error is 2.8 percentage points, the HT report said.

Harris has a narrow 49 percent to 47 percent lead over Trump in the Emerson College poll. Three percent of respondents said they were unsure and one percent planned to vote for another candidate, the report said.

Morning Consult and FiveThirtyEight polls also showed Harris ahead of Trump by 49% to 46% and 47.1% to 44.3%, respectively.

There is a lot at stake in swing states

In the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the YouGov poll results for Harris against Trump are 50% to 49%, 50% to 50% and 51% to 49%, respectively.

Another Washington Post poll found Harris and Trump each leading in three of seven swing states. For Harris, these are Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. For Trump, it's Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, HT reported. WaPo's poll compiles data from state and national polls and takes into account the last two election winners in a given state.

In particular, polls from 2016 and 2020 found that support for Trump was below average in those elections, so the numbers are so close to zero and are not much consolation for Harris' campaign.

(With contributions from agencies)