The latest national NBC News poll of the 2024 presidential campaign shows a neck-and-neck contest characterized by clashing forces that have helped both Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in their pursuit the White House.
All told, the poll shows Harris getting support from 49% of registered voters in a head-to-head matchup, while Trump gets an identical 49%. Only 2% of voters say they are unsure about the choice.
Boosting Harris: Rising Democratic enthusiasm, a 20-point lead over Trump on abortion, and an advantage for Harris in which candidate looks more closely to the middle class.
Helping Trump: Two-thirds of voters believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, a positive assessment of Trump’s presidency — especially compared to President Joe Biden’s current performance — and Trump’s double-digit lead on the economy and costs of livelihood.
The country’s intense polarization also shapes the close contest, including a gender gap of more than 30 points that separates the voting preferences of men and women. Regardless of who wins the presidential race, 60% of voters believe the country will remain divided.
The stability in the survey is also notable: little has changed in the contest since last month, despite the frenzied campaign activity in recent weeks and billions of dollars in advertising.
“This is very stable data from where we were in October,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
“We’ve grown further apart and picked our corner,” McInturff added. “Each side is as closed as it can be, and they don’t budge or move.”
The 49%-49% race shown in this poll is essentially unchanged from October’s NBC News poll, when the two candidates were locked at 48% each.
(Read more from NBC News pollsters here about why this poll measures registered voters versus likely voters.)
An expanded vote including third-party candidates has Trump at 47% and Harris at 46%, with a combined 7% supporting other candidates or undecided – again unchanged from October.
Given that close elections are often determined by which party best turns out its voters, the NBC News poll also provides a snapshot of what could happen depending on even marginally different turnout scenarios.
In a slightly more favorable environment for Republicans — meaning higher turnout among men, white voters and voters without a college degree, even by a few percentage points — Trump leads Harris by 2 points, 50%-48%.
But in a more favorable turnout environment for Democrats—which means a slight increase in the number of women, white voters with college degrees, and voters of color showing up to the polls—these survey results show Harris leading Trump by 3 points, 50%- 47%.
All of these results fall within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
But because of the nation’s Electoral College system, the presidential race will ultimately be decided by what happens in key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And the latest polls from those states also find narrow margins and little certainty.
A gender gap of 34 points
At 49%-49%, the NBC News poll results are as close as possible. But huge differences in support for candidates remain across groups.
The poll shows Harris has her biggest advantages over Trump among black voters (87%-9%), younger voters under 30 (57%-41%) and white voters with a college degree (55%-43 %).
Trump, meanwhile, leads among rural voters (75%-23%), white voters (56%-42%) and white voters without a college degree (64%-34%).
But what still stands out as one of the defining features of the election is the huge gender gap between Harris and Trump, with women supporting Harris by a margin of 16 points (57%-41%) and men supporting Trump by 18 points (58% -40%).
This 34-point net gender gap is larger than the 30-point gap in the October NBC News poll.
Harris, meanwhile, has an 8-point lead among independent voters, 51%-43%. Yet among Latino voters, she is only ahead by 9 points, 53%-44%, although the sample size here is small and the margin of error is considerably larger compared to the overall survey.
Trump leads the way on cost of living and the border; Harris leads on abortion and the middle class
As voters consider how the candidates would tackle key issues and how they would measure up against presidential traits, Harris maintains a significant advantage on abortion, giving Trump a 20-point lead over which candidate can best tackle the issue.
Harris is also 9 points ahead of Trump, 51%-42%, which candidate looks better at the middle class.
In contrast, Trump has double-digit leads on which candidate will better handle the economy (51%-41%) and handle the cost of living (52%-40%). He also maintains his 25-point lead on securing the border and controlling immigration, which has been his strong suit throughout the 2024 campaign.
But voters are essentially divided over which candidate best represents change (46% choose Harris, 41% choose Trump), and they are divided over who is more competent and effective (with 47% saying Trump and 45% saying Harris).
That’s a slight reversal from October, when 48% of voters said Harris would do a better job if he were competent and effective, compared to 43% for Trump.
Biden remains a hindrance for Democrats
The NBC News poll shows 41% of registered voters approve of President Joe Biden’s performance, compared to 58% who say they disapprove.
That’s down slightly from the 43% who said they approved of his performance as president in October.
By comparison, when voters were asked to rate Trump’s time in office, 48% approved of the former president’s job performance, compared to 51% who disapproved, identical to what the poll found last month — and higher than any rating of Trump’s time in office while in office. term.
Meanwhile, when voters asked what worries them more – Harris continuing the same approach as Biden or Trump continuing the same approach from his first term as president – 41% of voters say they are more concerned about that Harris is following Biden’s path, compared to 40% who are more concerned about Trump repeating the actions of his term.
Another 14% of voters say neither is a concern.
More than half of voters say they have already voted
The poll, conducted through Saturday evening, also shows that 54% of registered voters say they have already voted, plus another 11% who say they plan to vote early in the coming days.
Among that early voting group, nearly two-thirds of the electorate, Harris leads Trump by 7 points in the head-to-head race, 53%-46%. That’s a significant change from the last NBC News poll of 2020, when Biden led Trump by more than 20 points among these voters. Trump and the Republican Party made significant efforts to get his supporters to vote early this year.
Among the 33% of voters who say they will wait until Election Day, Trump has a 16-point lead, 56%-40%.
That compares with Trump’s nearly 30-point lead among these voters on Election Day four years ago.
Other findings in the poll
Regardless of who wins the presidential election, 60% of registered voters in the poll say the US will remain divided, compared to 28% who think the US will be more united after the election.
Harris and Trump score almost identically in terms of popularity: 43% of voters view Harris positively and 50% view her negatively (a net score of -7). That is compared to Trump’s score of 42% positive, 51% negative (-9).
And when it comes to the battle for Congress, 47% of voters say they prefer Democrats to control Congress, while 46% want Republicans to be in charge. That is effectively unchanged from last month, when the two parties were tied at 47% each on this question last month.
The NBC News poll was conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 among 1,000 registered voters — most of whom were contacted by cell phone — and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
