Kamala Harris bridges gap with Trump after Biden's withdrawal from presidential race: Poll

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Kamala Harris, who has begun her sprint for the White House, is in a virtual tie with former president Donald Trump, the Republican Party presidential candidate, according to the latest poll released on Saturday.

A New York Times/Siena College poll, just days after President Joe Biden abandoned his campaign under pressure from party leaders, showed Democrats rallying behind the 59-year-old Harris as her fresh candidacy quickly reunited a Democratic Party that had been deeply fractured.

Harris, with only 14 per cent saying they would prefer another option, has an overwhelming 70 per cent of Democratic voters support, the New York Times cited the poll as saying.

The voters said they wanted the party to speedily consolidate behind Harris, who launched her presidential campaign last week hours after Biden, 81, withdrew from the race for a second term.

She is, however, yet to be officially declared the presidential candidate by the Democrats.

A majority of Democrats said they felt enthusiastic about Harris as the nominee, with only 10 per cent dissatisfied or angry.

Her swift reassembling of the Democratic coalition appeared to help narrow Trump’s significant advantage over Biden of only a few weeks ago, the New York Times said.

It said Harris was receiving 93 per cent support from Democrats, the same share that Trump was getting from Republicans.

Overall, Trump leads Harris 48 per cent to 47 per cent among likely voters in a head-to-head match. That is a marked improvement for Democrats when compared to the Times/Siena poll in early July that showed Biden behind by six percentage points, in the aftermath of the poor debate performance that eventually drove him from the race.

Trump leads Harris 48 per cent to 46 per cent among registered voters.

He had led among registered voters by nine percentage points over Biden in the post-debate poll.

The survey provides a snapshot of the presidential race in the middle of one of the most volatile and unpredictable periods in modern American history when Democrats suddenly have a new nominee.

It comes less than two weeks after Trump survived an assassination attempt and his favourability rating rose to the highest level it has ever been in a national New York Times survey.

The survey showed Harris faring better among groups that Biden had been the weakest in, especially younger and nonwhite voters.

At the same time, some Democrats fear she might not retain the same strengths that Biden has had among older voters, for whom the poll shows some erosion of Democratic support.

The poll showed Harris garnering about 60 per cent support from voters under 30 and Hispanic voters, groups Biden had consistently struggled with.

Among voters under 45, Harris was ahead by 10 percentage points, less than three weeks after Trump had held a narrow edge with that group over Biden.

However, the impact of Harris’s candidacy in particular battleground states was not immediately clear, because the survey was of voters nationwide.

Harris emerged as the Democratic Party’s expected nominee after a tumultuous few weeks following Biden's terrible performance in the presidential debate.

Biden stepped aside last Sunday, following a month of drawn-out questions about his mental faculties, and Trump's narrow escape from an assassination attempt.

If elected on November 5 to succeed Biden, Harris - the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother - would not only be the first woman, but the first Indian-American, the first Asian, the first Black woman and the first person of Jamaican descent to ascend to the office.

Meanwhile, no other Democrats have announced their candidacy for the presidential race. Harris has secured endorsements from more than 40 state delegations, surpassing the number of delegates she will need to win the nomination and if that support holds, Democrats will officially nominate her for president during a virtual roll call vote early next month.

Under new rules adopted by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday, the nominee will be selected as soon as August 1, and the candidate has until August 7 to select a running mate. The party will meet for its convention in Chicago starting August 19.

Harris, a senator from California before she was elected vice president, quickly hit the campaign trail with events in Wisconsin, Indiana and Texas. Her campaign said it raked in more than USD 130 million since she officially joined the White House race.

The endorsement comes as ‘Harris for President’ kicks off a ‘Weekend of Action’ marking 100 days until Election Day on November 5.

With over 1,70,000 volunteers and 2,300 events across the battleground states, Team Harris is making its case to the voters who will decide this election about the fundamental choice they will face this November at the ballot box.

The independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s share of the vote continues to drop, hitting just 5 per cent of likely voters in the new survey. He was the only third-party candidate above 1 per cent.