Kamala Harris begins to pull away from Donald Trump for first time in latest election polling

Kamala Harris appears to be pulling ahead of Donald Trump in presidential election polling for the first time, with the Democrat taking a three-point lead over the Republican former president in a new survey.

A poll for NPR, PBS and Marist published on Wednesday places the Vice President on 51 per cent of the vote overall, compared to Trump’s 48 per cent, and comes after her choice of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate was met with an overwhelmingly positive response.

Harris also leads Trump on abortion by a huge 15 per cent margin, although the latter has a six-point advantage over the former when it comes to illegal immigration, suggesting MAGA attacks on the Democrat’s past role as a “border czar” within the Biden administration are hurting her on that issue.

The poll in question was conducted between August 1-4 and comes with a margin of error of 3.4 per cent.

Now that Harris’s rapid emergence from Joe Biden’s shadow in the last two weeks has seen her officially secure enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination, a number of national polls have begun to emerge comparing her head-to-head with Trump for the first time.

A recent SurveyUSA poll also put her three points ahead of Trump on 48 per cent to 45 per cent, as did a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll (46 per cent to 43 per cent) while one for Morning Consult put the gap at four points: 48 per cent to 44 per cent.

Others argue the contest remains much closer, however, with YouGov/CBS News still placing Harris ahead but only by a single point at 50 per cent to 49 per cent.

Real Clear Polling gives Harris an overall advantage of just half a percentage point in its average of 11 recent polls, taking into account all of those quoted above.