A pair of new polls released on Thursday morning indicate that Vice President Kamala Harris has surged ahead of former President Donald Trump in the national polls, although the race remains very tight in crucial battleground states.
The two polls in question come from USA Today/Suffolk, which shows Harris with a five-point national lead, and Reuters, which shows Harris with a four-point national lead.
Political observers said that the polls appeared to be good news for Harris but cautioned that the race is still up for grabs thanks to much tighter polling in swing states.
"Harris's margin in the poll among likely voters is 4.3%," wrote The Bulwark's conservative Bill Kristol. "Biden beat Trump in 2020 by 4.5%. So Harris has--to her great credit--gotten the race from a Trump lead back up to the 2020 numbers. But this is still (especially in the EC) a knife's edge race."
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"A bunch of new polls out this morning, both national and battleground," wrote national security attorney Bradley Moss. "Harris maintains a solid national lead for now but the battlegrounds remain tight as ever. Vote."
Semafor reporter Dave Weigel argued that while the polling now may look similar to the polling in 2016, Harris's lead may be more durable than Clinton's given that her favorable numbers are significantly higher at the moment than the 2016 Democratic nominee's.
"Polling looks a lot like it did around Labor Day 2016, with one big difference — both candidates have much higher favorables, so there’s less scatter to third parties," he noted.
CBS News' Norah O'Donnell highlighted some striking differences in how Harris is polling now compared to how President Joe Biden was polling before he dropped out of the race.
"Voters 18 to 34 years old moved from supporting Trump by 11 points to supporting Harris by 13 points, 49%-36%," she observed. "Hispanics moved from supporting Trump by 2 points to supporting Harris by 16 points, 53%-37%."
Anti-Trump attorney and conservative activist George Conway, however, did not include any caveats in his analysis and said that it looked like a clear win.
"Is this bad for convicted felon Donald Trump?" he asked sarcastically. "Because it kinda seems bad."
Independent's White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg simply replied with, "Wow."
