How Kamala Harris’ 2024 Polling Compares to Joe Biden’s in 2020

Vice President Kamala Harris is struggling to gain as much support in the polls as Joe Biden had at this point in the election cycle in 2020, according to polling.
Since launching her campaign in late July, Harris has been credited with rebuilding momentum among Democrats who were not enthusiastic about Biden. For example, the latest poll by The Economist and YouGov, conducted between August 17 and 20, showed that 71 percent of Democrats said they were either very or extremely enthusiastic about voting for her for president in the upcoming election.
That is compared to the same poll from between July 13 and 16, before Biden dropped out, which showed only 43 percent of Democrats were either very or extremely enthusiastic about voting for the incumbent for president in November.
Harris also drew more than 2.4 million donors in her first 11 days at the top of the Democratic ticket—nearly 200,000 more contributors than during Biden’s entire year-plus-long campaign, Bloomberg reported.
But despite the momentum she has built, polls show she has still not garnered as much support for her campaign as Biden had at this point in 2020.
A poll conducted by Emerson College between August 12 and 14 showed that Harris was leading Republican nominee Donald Trump by 4 points among 1,000 likely voters at 50 percent to the former president’s 46 percent in a head-to-head matchup. The poll had a margin of error of +/-3 percent.
That compares to polling from September 2020 when Biden was leading Trump by 9 points among likely voters at 52 percent to Trump’s 43, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
National polling aggregators, including Race to the White House, VoteHub and FiveThirtyEight, show Harris leading Trump by between 2.3 points and 3.2 points.
“Harris is not yet where she needs to be in the polls,” David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s former campaign chief, said on the Overtime Oration podcast.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris campaign for comment via email.
Although Harris is struggling to match Biden’s lead, she is beating Hillary Clinton, who beat Trump by 2 points in 2016, according to exit polls.
However, she is failing to match Biden’s support among independent voters where Harris’ support has been volatile, with some polls showing her ahead and others showing her behind.
In the Emerson College poll, Harris is only 1 point ahead among independents, 46-45. According to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, Biden was 21 points ahead, 57-36, among independent voters around this point of the campaign.
According to Edison Research, Biden won independent voters by 13 points in 2020, with 54 percent to Trump’s 41 percent, after independents favored Trump in 2016.
Harris is also underperforming among Black voters compared to Biden, according to analysis by Newsweek.
On average, Harris is polling at 76 percent among Black voters, while Trump is polling at 16 percent. Democrats have won a majority of the Black vote in every presidential election since 1936, winning 88 percent of the Black vote in 2016 and 87 percent in 2020, according to exit polls.
Meanwhile, according to analysis by ABC, Harris is also underperforming among men, White and Hispanic voters, white college-educated voters and the 18-29 age group and over 65s. However, she is overperforming among women, white non-college-educated voters and rural voters compared to Biden.