Vice President Kamala Harris has reportedly increased her lead over former President Donald Trump, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday (October 8).

Harris reportedly leads Trump, 46% to 43%, nationally, according to the four-day poll completed on Monday (October 7), having previously led by a 2% margin. The poll does, however, have a margin of error of about 3% points, meaning the two candidates remain in a tight race.

On Monday, Trump was reported to have gained ground on Harris in the first Yahoo News/YouGov survey released after the vice presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz. Trump, who previously trailed by four points, is now tied with Harris at 47% among likely voters.

Additionally, 41% of respondents who watched the vice presidential debate believed that Vance was the winner, while 32% thought Walz had the advantage and 19% viewed it as a draw. Last week, Harris was reported to have a 50% to 48% edge over Trump among national voters in the Emerson College poll for the month of October, while 1% of respondents claim they support someone else and another 1% remain undecided.

The vice president had previously held a 2% advantage in the Emerson poll for the month of September.

“The margin between the candidates has stayed the same since early September, when Harris held 49% and Trump 47%,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “Harris maintains a slight edge, though less than [President Joe] Biden’s four-point lead in Emerson 2020 national polls at this time.”

Harris has reportedly split voters on favorability at 50%, while 49% of respondents view Trump as favorable and 51% see him as unfavorable. Both vice presidential candidates were reported to have had 46% favorability ratings, respectively, prior to Tuesday's (October 1) debate, though Tim Walz had a 46% unfavorable view and 9% of respondents said they hadn't heard of him, while JD Vance had a 48% unfavorable view and 6% of respondents claimed they'd never heard of him.

Michael Brown