Kamala Harris Takes Lead Against Donald Trump in Conservative Poll

Vice President Kamala Harris is now leading Donald Trump in a survey by a conservative-leaning polling group that tends to favor Republican candidates.
A poll from Rasmussen Reports, consisting of 380 respondents, shows that Harris has a 1-point lead over Trump (47 percent to 46 percent) with just over two months to go until November’s election.
The results are a continuation of the trend that has seen Harris cut into Trump’s lead since she entered the 2024 race after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign. A July 23 poll from Rasmussen, released soon after Biden endorsed Harris in the election, showed the former president had a 16-point lead over the vice president.
The results are also significant as they suggest Harris is the frontrunner in the 2024 election even in the conservative polls.
Sharing the result on X, formerly Twitter, Michael McDonald, professor of political science at the University of Florida, said: “A sign of the apocalypse. A Rasmussen poll with Harris leading +1.”
Rasmussen Reports itself appeared to note the shock results, posting “another night added to the tracker” along with the staring eyes emoji while sharing the latest poll with Harris in the lead. The pollster describes itself as nonpartisan.
Reacting to the survey, Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesperson, told Newsweek: “The average poll shows President Trump dominating Comrade Kamala, and many other battleground state polls show President Trump leading.”
Harris’s office has been contacted for comment via email.
Rasmussen Reports has previously been accused of being unreliable due to apparent bias as their results are thought to lean toward Republican candidates.
In March 2024, polling and forecasting website 538, formerly FiveThirtyEight, dropped Rasmussen Reports from its list of usable polling companies for failing to meet its standards.
Former pollster Adam Carlson warned about looking into the Rasmussen Reports results too much.
“By the way they are still not a real pollster, they could show Harris up by 6 points tomorrow and 9 points the day after that, all of their results belong not just in the garbage, but directly to the incinerator,” Carlson posted.
“There’s a non-zero chance they manipulated the data to have her nominally ahead in an attempt to give themselves more credibility when they show Trump surging back into a comfortable lead in the coming days/weeks.”
In reply, Mark Mitchell, head pollster at Rasmussen Reports, told Newsweek: “As you likely already know, these are all ad-hominem attacks and lack substance.
“We are the most attacked pollster, despite nailing the 2016 election and being 1.5 points on average too favorable to Biden in 2020. Why is no other pollster, in transparency, putting out their overnight results?”
Mitchell said the new poll results also have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. Surveys with low numbers of respondents tend to have a greater margin of error.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s live national average poll tracker, Harris is currently 3.2 points ahead of Trump in the 2024 election (47.1 percent to 43.8 percent).
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