Harris holds steady, marginal 45%-42% lead over Trump, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris held a marginal 3-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump - 45% to 42% - as the two stayed locked in a tight race to win the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found. 

While the gap between the two remained steady compared with a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted a week earlier, the new poll, which closed on Sunday, gave signs that voters - particularly Democrats - might be more enthused about this year's election than they were ahead of the November 2020 presidential election when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump.

Some 78% of registered voters in the three-day poll - including 86% of Democrats and 81% of Republicans - said they were "completely certain" they would cast a ballot in the presidential election. The share of sure-to-vote poll respondents was up from 74% in a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted Oct. 23-27, 2020, when 74% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans said they were certain to cast ballots.

The poll had a margin of error of around 4 percentage points.

Harris entered the race in July after Biden ended his reelection effort following a poor debate performance against Trump in June. Trump at the time was widely seen as the front-runner, partly based on his perceived strength on the economy after several years of high inflation under the Biden administration, which has eased in recent months.

More recently, Harris appears to be drawing strength from voters picking her as the better candidate for healthcare policy and for handling political extremism, although voters also rate the U.S. economy as the top issue in the election and said Trump was the better economic steward, according to the new poll.

Harris led Trump by 5 points - 43% to 38% - when voters were asked to pick who was better for handling political extremism and threats to democracy. She led him by 14 points on healthcare policy. On both issues, Harris' lead over Trump was largely unchanged from a Sept. 20-23 Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Trump led Harris 45% to 40% when voters were asked who was the better candidate for the "economy, unemployment and jobs," the category of national priorities that 26% of poll respondents picked as the biggest problem facing the nation, compared with 23% who picked political extremism and 3% who said healthcare. 

Trump's 5-point edge on the economy compared with a 2-point advantage in the Sept. 20-23 poll.

While national surveys, including Reuters/Ipsos polls, give important signals on the views of the electorate, the state-by-state results of the Electoral College determine the winner, with seven battleground states likely to be decisive. Polls have shown Harris and Trump are neck and neck in those battleground states, with many results within the margins of error.

Given the close match, the candidates' efforts to ensure that their supporters actually cast ballots will likely be key in determining the winner. Just two-thirds of U.S. adults voted in the November 2020 election, which was the highest turnout in over a century, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center.

Roughly one-third of registered voters are Democrats and one-third Republican, with the balance independents or something else, according to Pew.

While voters appear relatively eager to cast ballots, neither candidate was liked by a majority of the electorate. Only 46% of voters in the poll said they had a favorable opinion of Harris, and 42% said the same of Trump.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 938 U.S. adults online, nationwide, including 807 registered voters. Among these, 769 were considered the most likely to turn out on Election Day. Among these likely voters, Harris held a 3-percentage-point lead over Trump, 47% to 44%.

(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)