The final national NBC News poll of the 2024 presidential campaign finds a neck and neck contest defined by clashing forces that have aided both Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in their pursuit of the White House.
Taken together, the poll shows Harris getting support from 49% of registered voters in a head-to-head matchup, while Trump gets an identical 49%. Just 2% of voters say they’re unsure about the choice.
Boosting Harris: rising Democratic enthusiasm, a 20-point lead over Trump on the issue of abortion, and an advantage for Harris on which candidate better looks out for the middle class.
Helping Trump: two-thirds of voters who believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, a favorable assessment of Trump’s presidency — especially compared with President Joe Biden’s current performance — and Trump’s double-digit advantage on the economy and the cost of living.
The nation’s intense polarization is also defining the close contest, including a gender gap of more than 30 points separating the voting preferences of men and women. Regardless of who wins the presidential race, 60% of voters believe the country will remain divided.
The stability in the survey also stands out, with little changing in the contest since last month, despite the frenzied campaign activity of the final weeks and the billions of dollars in advertisements.
“This is very stable data from where we were in October,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
“We’ve grown further apart, and we’ve picked our corner,” McInturff added. “Each side is as locked down as it gets, and they don’t budge or move.”
The 49%-49% race shown in this poll is essentially unchanged from the NBC News poll in October, when the two candidates were deadlocked at 48% each.
On an expanded ballot including third-party candidates, Trump is at 47% and Harris at 46%, with a combined 7% backing other candidates or undecided — again, unchanged from October.
Given that close elections are often decided by which party better turns out its voters, the NBC News poll also provides a snapshot of what could happen depending on even marginally different turnout scenarios.
In a slightly more favorable environment for Republicans — which means greater turnout among men, white voters and voters without college degrees by even a few percentage points — Trump leads Harris by 2 points, 50%-48%.
But in a more favorable turnout environment for Democrats — which means a slight increase in women, white voters with college degrees and voters of color showing up to the polls — these survey results show Harris leading Trump by 3 points, 50%-47%.
All of these results are within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Yet because of the nation’s Electoral College system, the presidential contest will ultimately be decided by what happens in key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And the latest polls of those states find close margins and little certainty as well.
A 34-point gender gap
At 49%-49%, the NBC News poll results are as close as possible. But among different groups, there remain enormous differences in candidate support.
The poll finds Harris with her biggest advantages over Trump among Black voters (87%-9%), younger voters under 30 years old (57%-41%) and white voters with college degrees (55%-43%).
Trump, meanwhile, leads among rural voters (75%-23%), white voters (56%-42%) and white voters without college degrees (64%-34%).
Yet what continues to stand out as one of the defining features of the election is the enormous gender gap between Harris and Trump, with women supporting Harris by a 16-point margin (57%-41%) and men backing Trump by 18 points (58%-40%).
This net gender gap of 34 points is larger than the 30-point gap in October’s NBC News poll.
Harris, meanwhile, holds an 8-point advantage among independent voters, 51%-43%. Yet she’s ahead by just 9 points among Latino voters, 53%-44%, though the sample size here is small and the margin of error is considerably larger compared with the overall survey.
Trump is ahead on cost of living and the border; Harris leads on abortion and the middle class
As voters consider how the candidates would handle key issues and how they measure up on presidential characteristics, Harris maintains a significant advantage on the issue of abortion, leading Trump by 20 points on which candidate better handles the issue.
Harris also is ahead of Trump by 9 points, 51%-42%, on which candidate better looks out for the middle class.
By contrast, Trump holds double-digit leads on which candidate better handles the economy (51%-41%) and deals with the cost of living (52%-40%). He also maintains his 25-point edge on securing the border and controlling immigration, which has consistently been his strongest issue over the course of the 2024 campaign.
But voters are essentially split on which candidate better represents change (46% pick Harris, 41% select Trump), and they’re divided over who is more competent and effective (with 47% saying Trump and 45% saying Harris).
That’s a slight reversal from October, when 48% of voters said Harris would do a better job being competent and effective, versus 43% for Trump.
Biden remains a drag for Democrats
The NBC News poll shows 41% of registered voters approving of President Joe Biden’s job performance, versus 58% who say they disapprove.
That’s down slightly from the 43% who said they approved of his performance as president in October.
By comparison, when voters were asked to assess Trump’s time in office, 48% approve of the former president’s job performance versus 51% who disapprove, identical to what the poll found last month — and higher than any assessment of Trump’s time in office during his term.
Meanwhile, when voters considered what concerns them more — Harris continuing the same approach as Biden or Trump continuing the same approach from his first term as president — 41% of voters say they are more concerned about Harris following in Biden’s path, compared with 40% who are more worried about Trump repeating the actions of his term.
An additional 14% of voters say neither is a concern.
More than half of voters say they’ve already cast ballots
The poll, which was taken in the field through Saturday night, also finds 54% of registered voters saying they already voted, plus another 11% who say they planned to vote early in the remaining days.
Among that early-voting group, nearly two-thirds of the electorate, Harris leads Trump by 7 points in the head-to-head race, 53%-46%. That’s a significant change from the final 2020 NBC News poll, when Biden was ahead of Trump by more than 20 points among these voters. Trump and the Republican Party have invested significant effort in engaging his supporters to vote early this year.
Among the 33% of voters who say they’ll wait until Election Day, Trump holds a 16-point lead, 56%-40%.
That’s compared with Trump’s nearly 30-point lead among these Election Day voters four years ago.
Other findings in the poll
No matter who wins the presidential contest, 60% of registered voters in the poll say the U.S. will remain divided, versus 28% who think it will be more united after the election.
Harris and Trump have almost identical scores in popularity, with 43% of voters viewing Harris positively and 50% viewing her negatively (a -7 net rating). That’s compared with Trump’s score of 42% positive, 51% negative (-9).
And when it comes to the battle for Congress, 47% of voters say they prefer Democrats control Congress, while 46% want Republicans in charge. That’s basically unchanged from last month, when the two parties were tied on this question last month at 47% each.
The NBC News poll was conducted Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 of 1,000 registered voters — most of whom were contacted by cellphone — and it has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
