Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump leads vice president Kamala Harris by a point in a new national poll by the New York Times and Siena College, as the US election enters its final stretch.
The survey of 1,695 registered voters conducted between September 3rd to 6th shows support for Trump at 48 per cent against 47 per cent for Harris, within the three-percentage point margin of error. The poll was carried out via telephone, using live interviewers, in English and Spanish.
The poll shows 56 per cent of registered voters say Trump would do a better job handling the economy, while 51 per cent of voters rate current economic conditions as poor.
Harris and Trump are set to face off on Tuesday night in Philadelphia in their first – and perhaps only – debate, just 75 days after Joe Biden’s dire performance against Trump triggered a political earthquake that ultimately forced him from the race for the White House.
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The survey found that 28 per cent of likely voters said they felt they needed to know more about Harris, who became the Democratic nominee when President Joe Biden announced in July he wouldn’t run again.
Democrats had a slight edge in enthusiasm in the latest survey, with 91 per cent saying they were enthusiastic about voting versus 85 per cent of Republicans.
In May Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush-money payment to an adult film performer. On Friday the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, delayed Trump’s sentencing until November 26th – after the election date of November 5th.
Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz will tour several battleground states following the debate. Vice president Harris will kick off the tour in North Carolina on Thursday and travel to Pennsylvania on Friday. Walz will travel to Michigan and Wisconsin.
Polling averages show a tight race in the handful of states that could swing to Republicans or Democrats and will likely determine the election. The battleground states also include Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has quoted Trump as saying he is “very offended” by Vladimir Putin expressing a preference for Harris to become the next US president. The Republican Party’s candidate was reacting to comments made on Thursday by Russia’s president, who, when asked for his thoughts on the US election, noted that Joe Biden had asked his supporters to back the vice-president and added: “we will do the same, we will support her”.
“She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her,” Putin said with a smile before suggesting this could mean she would refrain from further sanctions against Russia.
“He endorsed Kamala,” Trump said, according to the New York Times. “I was very offended by that. I wonder why he endorsed Kamala. No, he’s a chess player.” - New York Times, Bloomberg, The Guardian