Polling shows ‘Harris honeymoon’ underway; team Trump says it won’t last

President Joe Biden’s decision to leave the race for the White House apparently hasn’t changed political circumstances all that much.

The earliest polls show Vice President Kamala Harris holding steady in nearly the same trailing position her boss maintained for months against former President Donald Trump.

Polling performed in the wake of the Republican National Convention, where the GOP selected Trump for a third time running and paired him with Ohio’s U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, and after Biden’s sudden Sunday announcement he would not seek a second term, shows Trump and Harris essentially tied within the margins.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of more than 1,000 registered voters, Harris has flipped the script on the Republicans. That survey shows Harris up 44% to 42%, with a 3-point margin of error.

“Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week’s poll before his Sunday exit from the race,” they wrote.

That might seem like good news to the freshly launched Harris campaign, but an NPR/PBS/Marist poll shows just the opposite, with Trump leading the Vice President by a single point, 46% to 45%. The survey of more than 1,000 registered voters shows the pair tied at 42% in a race including third-party alternatives.

Lee Miringoff, Director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said the polling shows that “though the names have changed, the contest for president all looks very familiar.”

Most Americans — 87% — agree with Biden’s decision to step down, according to Marist pollsters, and 41% say it increases the chances of Democrats holding onto the White House after November.

More than three-quarters of left-leaning voters approve of the party’s decision to back Harris, according to pollsters, with “77% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents” saying Harris should be the party’s nominee. Still, 22% think the Democrats should “find someone else to challenge Harris,” they wrote.

A CNN Poll released Wednesday shows the former President a full 3 points ahead of his new Democratic rival, though that too is within that survey’s 3-point margin of error. However, pollsters note, Harris is faring better than the 81-year-old president had been.

“Trump holds 49% support among registered voters nationwide to Harris’ 46%, a finding within the poll’s margin of sampling error. That’s a closer contest than earlier CNN polling this year had found on the matchup between Biden and Trump,” they wrote.

Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio said in a memo issued to the press Tuesday evening that he wouldn’t read too much into polls during the “Harris Honeymoon” that comes following her boss’ departure from the race.

“Given what has happened over the pas couple of days and her impending VP choice, there is no question that Harris will get her bump earlier than the Democrat’s Convention. And that bump is likely to start showing itself over the next few days and will last a while until the race settles back down,” he wrote.

“Before long, Harris’ ‘honeymoon’ will end and voters will refocus on her role as Biden’s partner and co-pilot,” Fabrizio said.

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