Harris gains in post-debate US national polls, but will her gains be sustained?

Jacquelyn Martin/AP/AAP by Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne The United States presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 48.9–46.0. In my previous US politics article on September 9, Harris led Trump by 48.7–46.2. Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2. By the election, Biden will be almost 82, Trump is now 78 and Harris will be 60. Harris has been boosted by her performance in the September 10 debate between Harris and Trump, and she needed this boost after her national lead dropped below two points in Silver’s aggregate before there were many post-debate polls. In a YouGov poll for Yahoo news that was taken in the three days after the debate, respondents thought Harris won the debate by 56–26 over Trump. Harris may have been further boosted by Trump continuing after the debate with the baseless claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets. We don’t yet have any polls conducted since Sunday’s second assassination attempt against Trump, and this may interrupt Harris’ debate bounce. Before the debate,...