US Elections 2024: Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by 42% to 37% in Ipsos poll, 5 points up

US Elections 2024: Kamala Harris is leading her rival Donald Trump 42 per cent to 37 per cent in the United States presidential race, edging up by five points, a poll published by researcher Ipsos on August 7 showed, Reuters reported.

US Vice President Harris, who took over the Democrat candidacy after Joe Biden pulled out, has effectively turned the tide against her Republican rival and former US President Trump, leaping five points from the 37 per cent against 34 per cent odds recorded by Reuters-Ipsos on July 22-23.

Besides Trump, independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., has seen his support dwindle from 10 per cent of respondents in July to 4 per cent in August, the report said.

The US elections are scheduled to happen on November 5, this year.

The Ipsos August poll, conducted independently of Reuters, surveyed a total of 2,045 US adults online between August 2-7. It had a margin error of 3 percentage points, as per the report.

Swing States Also See Harris Lead

Ipsos also conducted another separate poll that measured support for candidates in the seven states that had close calls between Biden and Trump in the 2020 US elections.

The combined poll for Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona showed Harris leading Trump by 42 per cent to 40 per cent. There were no results published for individual states, Reuters noted.

Harris Bettering Biden's Performance

Notably, Harris has outperformed Biden, who was mostly tied with Trump in the 2024 Ipsos-Reuters polls. The current US President was registering noticeably lower numbers than 2020, when he defeated Trump.

Harris entered the race on July 21 when 81-year-old Biden, pulled out and endorsed his VP after much media mania and talk around a disastrous debate performance on June 27 against Trump.

In terms of word associations, the August poll found voters linked Trump with 'patriot' — which he regularly uses in campaign speeches, and 'weird' — a word Harris supporters have used to hit back at Trump in recent weeks, the report said.

(With inputs from Reuters)