50% of voters expect Trump to win presidency, 49% Harris
The final Emerson College Polling national survey of likely voters before Election Day finds former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris with 49% support each among US voters. One percent support a third-party candidate and one percent are undecided.
“The final Emerson College poll of the national popular vote, which doesn’t account for the Electoral College, points to an incredibly close race,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “The gender divide is stark, with women favoring Harris by 12 points and men supporting Trump by the same margin.”
- Independents break for Trump over Harris, 50% to 44%.
Fifty percent (50%) of voters expect Trump to be the next president, while 49% expect Harris to win. Eighty-three percent say they decided who to support over a month ago, while 8% made up their mind in the past month, 6% in the last week, and 3% have not made up their mind.
Vice President Harris has a slight edge on Trump when it comes to favorability ratings: 50% have a favorable view of Harris while 48% have a favorable view of Trump. Instead, a slight majority (52%) have an unfavorable view of Trump, while 50% have an unfavorable view of Harris. President Joe Biden holds a 40% job approval and 53% disapproval rating.
On the 2024 generic congressional ballot, 48% plan to support the Democratic candidate on the ballot, while 47% plan to support the Republican candidate.
- Independent voters are split: 43% support the Republican candidate and 43% support the generic Democratic candidate.
Voters were asked if recent coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Madison Square Garden impacted their vote for president. A plurality of voters (43%) say it makes no difference in their vote, while 26% say it makes them less likely to support Trump, and 25% more likely to support Trump.
Regarding how much voters trust that elections are fair, 34% have a great deal of trust that elections are fair, 33% have a good amount of trust, 25% not very much, 8% not at all.
In this poll, voters were asked how much they trust public opinion polls. Forty-nine percent say not very much and 11% not at all, while 32% have a good amount of trust and 9% have a great deal of trust.
“Harris and Trump voters differ greatly in their trust of elections: 93% of Harris voters have a good amount or great deal of trust that elections are fair, compared to 40% of Trump voters,” Kimball said. “Trust in public opinion polls also varies by presidential choice: 54% of Harris voters have a great deal or good amount of trust in public opinion polls compared to 25% of Trump voters.”
Heading into Election Day, the top issue for voters continues to be the economy, at 40%, followed by immigration (17%), threats to democracy (16%), abortion access (7%), and healthcare (5%).
- Since last week, concern for immigration has increased from 14% to 17%, and threats to democracy increased from 14% to 16%.
Methodology
The Emerson College Polling national survey was conducted October 30-November 2, 2024. The sample of likely voters, n=1,000, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, party registration, and region based on 2024 likely voter modeling. Turnout modeling is based on voter registration and election data.
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.
Data was collected by contacting cell phones via MMS-to-web text, landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) (both lists provided by Aristotle), and an online panel of voters provided by CINT. The survey was offered in English.
All questions asked in this survey with the exact wording, along with full results, demographics, and cross tabulations can be found under Full Results. This survey was funded by Emerson College.
