Harris, Trump locked in dead heat: Poll

The presidential race is in a dead heat, new polling shows, just before Vice President Harris and former President Trump are set to face off in their first debate. 

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found Trump up just 1 point over Harris among registered voters, 47 percent to 46 percent, a narrowing of his lead since July. Another 7 percent of respondents were undecided.

When undecided respondents were asked which candidate they lean toward, the race solidified into an even 50-50 tie between the presidential rivals. In July, Trump led the hypothetical by 4 points.

Harris and Trump are also tied in a four-way race with independent candidate Cornel West and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, both with and without leaners.

“In terms of the popular vote, Harris has drawn even with Trump with a surge of key demographic blocs,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the poll. 

Both presidential candidates are otherwise winning their party bases, with white, male and rural voters favoring Trump, while Black, urban and college-educated voters favored Harris. A third of independent voters notably say they're still deciding.

Hispanic voters are split. Fifty percent favor Harris, while 43 percent pick Trump. The leftover 7 percent are unsure, and that marks “a key pick up” for Trump, Penn said. 

“The election is likely to hinge on this key group,” he added.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris results are in line with a new poll from The New York Times/Siena College that put Trump up 1 point against Harris, while an Emerson College Polling survey found Harris with a slight edge over the former president. Polling averages from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ have Harris with a 2-point lead nationally.

All together, the numbers show Harris and Trump heading into their first debate amid a tight race. They'll face off Tuesday on ABC News, mere months after a debate between Trump and President Biden led to the incumbent's historic exit from the race.

Like the White House contest, the battle for the House and Senate also looks highly competitive. On a generic congressional ballot, Democrats and Republicans were tied at 45 percent support each, with another 8 percent of respondents picking third-party candidates and 2 percent undecided. Adding in leaners, Democrats had a 2-point advantage, a shift to toward the party after Republicans were up 4 points in July.

The survey was conducted Sept. 4-5 among 2,358 registered voters by the Harris Poll and HarrisX. It is a collaboration between the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. 

Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.