Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? Latest poll updates

In less than 47 days, Vice President Kamala Harris will go head-to-head with Donald Trump as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.

Fresh swing state polls from Pennsylvania and Michigan show that Harris has etched out a strong 5+ point lead in both states, while a third battleground is too close to call.

The candidates are preparing for an intense final stretch of the campaign, with the needle ready to swing either way; and for the first time in over three years, the average of Kamala Harris’s favorability in the polls is at a neutral rather than negative position.

So how will Harris and Trump fare in November?

Harris has a 3.3-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls.

New polling from Quinnipiac University in three key battleground states shows promising lead for Harris — but still room for Trump to turn things around in one.

In Pennsylvania, which hosted last week’s head-to-head debate, Harris leads by 6 points with 51 per cent of the vote, compared to Trump’s 45 per cent.

Harris also enjoys a strong 5-point lead in Michigan, at 50 per cent with Trump at 45 per cent.

Part of this could be attributed to Harris’s particularly strong support among Michigan women, higher than the national average.

“With a gender gap as wide as Lake Michigan, Harris leads Trump by about 20 percentage points among women and Trump leads Harris among men by half that,” says Quinnipiac University analyst Tim Malloy.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, neither candidate has managed to etch out a real lead. Since Biden won the state by a hairline in 2020 — just 0.63 per cent — we could see a repeat situation in November.