Good news for Harris: Multiple polls show VP gaining big early voting lead despite Trump's push

With just a few days left for the November 5 polls, the 2024 US Presidential election has already set records for pre-Election Day votes. While Republicans have been excitedly urging people to take part in early voting, things are looking great for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Pollings are now suggesting that the Democratic presidential nominee is significantly ahead among those who have already voted either through absentee, mail-in or in-person ballots. Recent national polling from ABC News/Ipsos, The New York Times/Sienna College and CNN show that Harris is leading Trump by 62 per cent to 33 per cent; 59 per cent to 40 per cent; and 61 per cent to 36 per cent respectively.

Interestingly, Harris’s lead is potentially bigger than former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s, who fought against Trump in the 2016 US Presidential Elections. However, the figures are shy of US President Joe Biden’s margins in late 2020 polls when Democrats embraced mail voting and Trump attacked it and persuaded his supporters not to do it.

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Can we rely on the polls?

The only state where Harris was predicted to be trailing is the state of Nevada, where according to CNN, Trump is leading by 6 points. However, this is a limited number of polls, and the subsamples of those who say they’ve already voted have larger margins of error. Hence, these data are prone to being off just like polls are more general.

Another interesting fact about this phase is that women have outpaced men in early voting turnout by nearly 10 percentage points. This is seen as good news for Harris since the vice president has managed to gain solid support from American women throughout the election cycle.

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Four days from Election Day, 53 per cent of early voters nationally as of Friday have been women and 44 per cent men, according to TargetSmart, a Democratic-aligned firm that tracks early voting data. The margin is about the same as the 2020 elections which was eventually won by Biden.

“The Democratic women, especially, appear to be just more fired up. Even though the Republicans’ vote share is increasing, you’re still seeing those gender gaps hold,” said Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart. According to the University of Florida Election Project, more than 67 million Americans voted early as of Friday afternoon. It is pertinent to note that over 100 million Americans voted early in 2020 polls which took place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With inputs from agencies.