Who do independents favor in the presidential election? New poll finds big change

A new poll finds Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by 3 percentage points nationally — with a massive shift in who independent candidates are supporting three months before Election Day.

The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows 53% of independent respondents support Harris, while 44% support Trump. The 9-point lead represents a big swing from the previous month, when the former president led by 14 points among independents.

Overall, the poll found that in a two-way race, Harris leads Trump 51% to 48%, whereas Trump led 46% to 45% in a July 23 poll. When including third-party candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris maintains the same margin over Trump, 48% to 45%, while Kennedy enjoys the support of 5% of voters nationally.

The poll, conducted between Aug. 1 and 4, sampled 1,613 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

Political independents currently make up the largest voting bloc in the country, with just under 43% of U.S. adults identifying with neither major political party in 2023, according to Gallup. An equal number of adults, 27%, identified as either Republican or Democrat.

The Marist poll also found that while Democrats are largely divided on whether they think Harris should continue President Joe Biden’s policies, the majority of Democratic-leaning independents say Harris should take the country in a new direction.

According to the poll, Harris is also leading by 54 percentage points among Black voters and 13 percentage points among women.

The poll also found U.S. adults evenly split on who they believe will win in November, with 48% each saying Harris or Trump. This is in stark contrast with perceptions of a Biden-Trump showdown: 59% in July believed Trump was going to return to the White House while 39% believed Biden would win a second term.

Harris has surpassed Trump in the aggregate of polls too, according to the Silver Bulletin, a presidential election forecast by political statistician Nate Silver.

As of Aug. 7, one day after Harris formally announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate at a rally in Pennsylvania, the forecast shows the current Vice President by about two points nationally.

Biden, however, was trailing Trump by 4 percentage points in the model on July 21, the same day he announced his decision to not seek re-election, instead endorsing Harris.

_____