Ammon News - Kamala Harris overwhelmingly impressed voters in her debate with Donald J. Trump, a new set of polls from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College found, but she has failed so far to seize a decisive advantage in the presidential campaign.
The race is deadlocked nationally. Yet in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, Ms. Harris has a lead of four percentage points — a slight edge that is unchanged since early August. She has reassembled much of the core Democratic coalition in the state, winning the support of Black voters, younger voters and women there.
The vice president received far stronger reviews of her debate performance last week than did Mr. Trump, with 67 percent of U.S. likely voters saying she did well compared with 40 percent for him. A majority of voters in every racial group, age bracket and education level — even white voters without a college degree, who are typically the former president’s most loyal demographic — gave her a positive review.
But even that was not enough to jostle a race that appears destined to become a battle of inches this fall, after a summer of tumult and upheaval.
Nationally, Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris are knotted at 47 percent. In Pennsylvania, Ms. Harris leads, 50 percent to 46 percent. The surveys were conducted almost entirely before the second apparent assassination attempt against Mr. Trump last Sunday.
The first 2024 general election debate, between Mr. Trump and President Biden in June, upended the race, with Democrats so thoroughly losing faith in Mr. Biden’s ability at the age of 81 to campaign and serve a second term that the party switched candidates.
The new polls show how quickly Democrats consolidated behind Ms. Harris and eliminated what had once appeared to be a daunting enthusiasm gap.
But Ms. Harris still has some critical vulnerabilities heading into the fall, most notably that far more voters see her as too liberal than view Mr. Trump as too conservative.
The New York Times