President Donald Trump is leading Vice President Kamala Harris nationwide according to a new Wall Street Journal poll.
The poll was conducted Oct. 19-22 among 1,500 registered voters, revealing a change from late August that showed Harris leading.
“The national survey finds that Trump is leading Harris by 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%, compared with a Harris lead of 2 points in the Journal’s August survey on a ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates,” the Journal’s Aaron Zitner wrote.
“Both leads are within the polls’ margins of error, meaning that either candidate could actually be ahead,” he added.
The pollsters conducting the survey also noted the significance of the lead change since August.
“Voters are finally getting to know her,’’ said the Republican pollster David Lee, who conducted the Journal survey with a Democrat, Michael Bocian. “The definitional period is coming to an end, and more people are unhappy with what they have learned about her than what they know about President Trump.’’
The news also comes as veteran pollster Nate Silver said on Tuesday that he believes Trump will win the presidential election next month.
Silver’s prediction was published in a New York Times op-ed that noted Silver’s “gut feeling” about the outcome of the showdown with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“In an election where the seven battleground states are all polling within a percentage point or two, 50-50 is the only responsible forecast,” Silver wrote.
“Yet when I deliver this unsatisfying news, I inevitably get a question: ‘C’mon, Nate, what’s your gut say?’ So OK, I’ll tell you. My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats,” he continued.
Silver noted that Trump performed better than polls predicted in 2016 in his win over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and in his close loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
The pollster also revealed that a Republican win could show that Democrats are no longer the clear favorite as more Americans are now identifying as Republicans.
“If Mr. Trump does beat his polling, there will have been at least one clear sign of it: Democrats no longer have a consistent edge in party identification — about as many people now identify as Republicans,” he wrote.