Kamala Harris takes five-point lead on Donald Trump with independent voters as race swings wide open

Kamala Harris maintains a lead on Donald Trump both overall and with independent voters in a new poll.

Harris is ahead with 47% while former President Trump is on 44%, according to a survey of 11,778 voters conducted by Morning Consult between August 9 and 11.

The current vice president was at 48% in the same poll last week but maintains that survey’s 42-37 lead over Trump with independent voters. At least 12% said they would vote for an independent.

Morning Consult has had Harris in the lead in every poll they’ve taken since the end of July when they started surveying her against Trump.

The survey was the first one the pollster has taken since Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

Kamala Harris maintains a lead on Donald Trump both overall and with independent voters in a new poll

Harris is ahead with 47% while former President Trump is on 44%, according to a survey of 11,778 voters conducted by Morning Consult between August 9 and 11

 Harris’ top demographics include black voters (73%-18%) and voters aged 18-34 (48%-41%).

That matches up with a new poll of Gen Z and millennial voters in battleground states found the vice president leading the ex-president 51 percent to 42 percent in a head-to-head matchup.

The poll sponsored by Don’t PAC Down, which surveyed voters ages 18 to 29 across eight crucial states, is a major shift from before President Biden dropped out of the race last month.

Harris has continued her recent surge in popularity with 49% of voters viewing her favorably vs. 47% viewing her negatively, where as Trump’s net favorables are at a minus-12.

However, the Harris honeymoon may be on the wane, as not only did she drop by one point from last week, voters have their most negative view of the economy in the survey’s last year of polling.

The recent downturn – which Trump has referred to as the ‘Kamala Crash’ – has negative opinions of the economy out-rating positive ones by 24 points.

Trump was the red-hot favorite last month when he triumphantly appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee after being shot in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

But after Harris took over from Biden, the liberal media has gone full-swing behind her campaign and she has seized momentum. The latest polling average from Real Clear Politics shows that Harris has a half-point lead over Trump. In the betting averages that lead is higher at 5.8 percentage points.

The survey was the first one the pollster has taken since Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate

Trump was the red-hot favorite last month when he triumphantly appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee after being shot in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania

In one recent example, Harris was more trusted on the economy than Trump – marking a big shift in voter sentiment following Biden’s decision to drop out.

The survey, for the Financial Times and the Ross School of Business, found that Harris had a 1-point advantage. It is the first time a Democrat presidential candidate has led Trump on the economy since the poll started tracking voter sentiment on the issue almost a year ago.

Another poll by New York Times / Siena College last week found that Harris has moved ahead in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Among likely voters in each state, 50 percent said they would likely vote for Harris while 46 for Trump.

Trump has begun his fight back Monday with a much-hyped interview with Elon Musk on X Spaces, however it drew some controversy after it started late due to technical snafus.

However, donors are worried about Trump’s recent strategy, according to The New York Times.

At an August 2 dinner in The Hamptons, Trump’s big backers hoped he would ‘signal that he was recalibrating after a series of damaging mistakes.’

But he discussed his ‘stop the steal’ claims about the election being rigged in 2020 which advisers have reportedly told him to drop.

The former president last night risked sparking further concern by falsely claiming that his Democratic opponent had doctored an image of the crowd at her rally last week in Detroit.

Trump has begun his fight back Monday with a much-hyped interview with Elon Musk on X Spaces, however it drew some controversy after it started late due to technical snafus

Musk’s interview with former President Donald Trump finally kicked off about 40 minutes behind schedule

Republican sources told Axios over the weekend that the former president is ‘struggling to get past his anger.’

The Trump campaign has considered many options to boost the president’s efforts, including the return of iconic campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, with the backing of both Melania and Lara Trump.

The 2024 Trump campaign has suffered from a triple blow of vice presidential nominee JD Vance‘s poor reception from the public, Harris’ ‘honeymoon period’ as she jumps into the race and a similar effect on her choice of running mate Tim Walz.

Now, what had appeared to be a coronation of Trump for a return to the White House over Biden has turned into a neck-and-neck race, with Harris beginning to take a lead in the polls.

However, the ‘honeymoon phase’ of both Harris’ campaign and Walz’s announcement appears to be ending with claims of ‘stolen valor’ over the Minnesota governor’s military service.

Biden himself finally admitted Sunday that he dropped out of the race because the polling between himself and Trump was so dire that it threatened to wipe out Democrats up and down the ticket.