DURHAM — Vice President Kamala Harris is expanding her lead over former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire, according to two new polls out of the University of New Hampshire and Saint Anselm College.
Harris now leads Trump by seven points in the two polls: 50% to 43% in an Aug. 21 poll conducted by theUniversity of New Hampshire Survey Center, and 51% to 44% in an Aug. 19 poll conducted bySaint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. In polls conducted in July by both colleges, Harris had led Trump by six points.
Harris’ favorability has also increased from July in both polls, while Trump's has remained mostly the same. Now, according to the UNH poll, nearly half of New Hampshire voters expect Harris to win in November, while just a quarter thought President Joe Biden would win re-election before his withdrawal, according to a poll taken in July.
NH poll experts explain Harris' rise
Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, said Harris’ current lead is similar to Biden's margin of victory over Trump in 2020 and reflects a return to “business as usual” in the Granite State.
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“I think it reflects the basic layout of Democrats and Republicans in the state,” said Smith. “The replacement of Biden with Harris has obviously motivated Democrats to the point where I think any sort of advantage that Trump might have had has disappeared or back to the status quo ante.”
Shortly after the first presidential debate in June between Biden and Trump, an NHIOP poll showed Trump leading Biden by two points in New Hampshire, a notable result for a state that had voted for Biden by more than seven points in 2020.
But now, Harris has consolidated her partisan base, securing 94% of the Democratic vote compared to Trump’s 90% of the Republican vote, according to the Saint Anselm poll.
While Harris' one-point increase in her lead is within the margin of error, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics Neil Levesque said, it’s still significant in an election this close.
“What happens in New Hampshire usually sort of echoes what happens nationwide. And if she's got momentum and she's upticking, usually, that's a sign that that's happening nationally,” Levesque said. “We've seen where she has reversed a Trump +2 margin here in New Hampshire, and she's now X days in, and she is still on the rise. And momentum matters in politics.”
The Saint Anselm poll also found that 62% people think the country is on the wrong track, which is generally bad news for an incumbent party, and the top issues to voters, like border security, would seem to benefit Trump. Yet, Levesque said, he thinks Harris has maintained her lead in part because Trump has struggled to add to his base. Despite an assassination attempt, a vice presidential pick, and a successful convention, his level of support has stayed the same.
In order to win the election, Levesque said, Trump will have to bring Harris' numbers down by finding an effective line of attack, something he’s been struggling to do.
“I think what we’re likely to see is a pretty much a repeat of 2020, in most of these states,” Smith said of the 2024 election. “That is presuming nothing really dramatic happens over the next couple months. ... I'm not holding out a lot of hope that something dramatic won’t happen.”
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Levesque, too, emphasized the most recent polls are just a "snapshot" more than two months ahead of the election.
Walz more popular than Vance: Do running mates matter?
Both polls also found Harris’ vice presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is more popular than Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
In the UNH poll 44% had a favorable view of Walz, while 40% had an unfavorable view of him. The Saint Anselm poll found Walz at 50%-41% favorable. Vance was on the negative side in both polls: 34%-53% and 41%-53%, respectively.
However, neither Smith nor Levesque thinks their popularity will make too much of a difference.
“People don't vote for vice president,” Levesque said.
While running mates can impact the race if they are really unpopular, even then, it doesn’t usually make or break a race, said Smith. While vice presidential picks in past years have been unpopular, like George H.W. Bush’s Dan Quayle and John McCain’s Sarah Palin, he thinks they ultimately didn’t effect the outcome of those races (Bush won, McCain lost).
In this case, while Walz is more popular among Democrats than Vance is among Republicans, Vance is not doing “tragic things” that would bring down the ticket.
“I think that chemistry does matter to some of these candidates, and I think in both cases, they have some chemistry with their vice presidential picks,” Levesque said.
How will RFK Jr. dropping out affect the race?
Third party candidateRobert F. Kennedy Jr.received 4% and 2% of the general election vote in the UNH and St. Anselm polls respectively.
On Friday, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. Levesque and Smith said the development likely won’t make a difference.
Just because a candidate drops out and endorses someone, Levesque said, doesn’t mean all of their voters will go to that side, especially in the case of Kennedy, who attracted some far left voters.
“He's never been very popular," Smith said. "He's only got a few percentage points here in the state, that's probably by people who didn't like Biden and don't like Trump so much. My sense is that they'll go back to where their party loyalties are most strongly, or, if anything, they'll go to one of the other third-party candidates.”
