Poll has Kamala Harris topping Donald Trump. A convention bounce or continuing trend?

A 9-point swing in the past month has Vice President Kamala Harris now leading former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a poll released Tuesday, Aug. 27, by Florida Atlantic University and Mainstreet Research.

The survey of voters across the United States, conducted after the conclusion of last week's Democratic National Convention, showed Harris topping Trump 49% to 45% among likely voters. The Democratic nominee also led her Republican rival by four points, 47% to 43%, among all voters.

That's a stunning reversal from a national poll released by FAU and Mainstreet on July 23, just two days after President Joe Biden exited the contest and endorsed Harris. That survey showed Trump leading Harris by a comfortable 5-point margin, 49% to 44%, among likely voters and by 4 points, 47% to 43%, among all voters.

"I think you've seen the trend line go towards the vice president since she's been in the race," said Kevin Wagner, FAU pollster and associate dean. "Certainly it's been buoyed and helped by the convention, which certainly has motivated Democrats."

Wagner said it's too early to tell whether Harris' lead is a typical, temporary post-convention bounce or part of a consistent trend in her favor since July 21.

"The question of whether it's a bounce is only something you can determine after the fact," he said. "If the numbers start to slide back down then you know it's a convention bounce. If they don't slide back down then it's part of a long-term trend."

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Despite the clear momentum, it's notable that the sample of voters in this survey was one that favored Biden by six points in the 2020 election, suggesting that Harris is running slightly behind the outgoing president.

But Wagner cautioned the comparison may not be apt. He pointed out that Harris has made a comeback from a "pretty negative and significant deficit" when Biden was atop the Democratic ticket. It's quite possible, too, that Harris could be mirroring Biden's performance if a 3.2 percentage point margin of error were applied, he said.

What accounted for the turnaround? Wagner said the determinative factor has been Harris' ability to rally Democrats and lure back those who were less than eager to back Biden's re-election bid.

"The main takeaway is not that there's been a huge shift in the way voters see these candidates but you're seeing greater enthusiasm among the traditional Democratic base for her candidacy than you were seeing for Joe Biden," he said. "Because of that, the race has sort of become much tighter, much closer and presented an opportunity for Democrats to actually win this."

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Harris polling stronger among core Democratic constituencies, and independents

Wagner said the data shows Harris has regained a gender gap advantage by outperforming Trump by nearly 12 points, 53.2% to 41.4%, among women. By contrast, Trump holds a marginal preference among male voters — just 2.1 points at 47.4% to 45.3%.

Harris also built a 50-point lead among Black voters, 72.5% to 21%, and recaptured Latino voters that Biden had been losing to Trump in posting a 51% to 35.4% advantage with that cohort.

Harris also widened the gap considerably among independent voters, the poll showed, with 48% of those asked saying they back her, versus 35% choosing Trump. In the FAU-Mainstreet survey released last month, the split was much more even with Harris above Trump by just 2 points, 45% to 43%.

“Trump is losing support from Independents compared to July, which could be a result of the Democratic Party convention and remains to be watched,” said Dukhong Kim, associate professor of political science at FAU, in a statement. “If this pattern persists, it will be difficult for Trump to maintain an advantage in the election.”

Trump's sole area of dominant strength in the survey was among white voters without college degrees. He led in that group by more than 20 points, 58.7% to 35.9%.

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That indicated to Wagner that Harris' surge "has a lot more to do with the Democratic coalition and coalescing than it does in persuading the Trump voter to switch sides."

Survey responders also said they viewed Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as a more "moderate" candidate than his Republican counterpart, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.

"In some ways I think that's mission accomplished for the Democrats when they attempted to put someone on the ticket that could appeal to a more moderate Midwestern voter," Wagner added.

In fact, the poll found that 51.9% of those who said they support Harris expressed joy, happiness, excitement and pride about the prospects for the November election. Among those who stated their support for Trump, the emotions they picked — at 56.6% — were fear, anger, sadness and pride.

Florida Democrats say they have amassed an 'army' of volunteers

On Tuesday morning, Florida Democrats said the surge in post-convention momentum has been seen in Trump's home state.

Since the conclusion last Thursday of the party's quadrennial gathering in Chicago, Florida Democrats said another 13,000 volunteers have signed up to help the Harris-Walz campaign in in the state. All told, nearly 40,000 people have stepped forward to assist the campaign since Harris entered the race on July 21.

"This is an army," said Florida Democratic chair Nikki Fried. The additional manpower has boosted outreach to voters, logging 1.2 million house calls and 2.1 million phone calls, she added.

Fried said Democrats will hammer Republicans up and down the ballot on two issues she said Florida voters care most about, the state's property insurance crisis and safeguarding reproductive rights. She added that voters are also "frustrated" by school book bans and even a widely criticized state proposal to build golf courses in pristine state parks.

"It is time to take our state back, time to celebrate the diversity of our state, to lift everybody up," Fried said. "We have to build a country where everybody has an opportunity to arise without having to knock people down. That is the campaign that is coming from Kamala Harris."

Fried also noted reports that the Trump campaign bought advertising time this week in the West Palm Beach media market, which covers Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate saying the GOP nominee is "scared of losing our state."

State GOP official: Florida 'leads the way' while Democrats just recite numbers

Florida Republican officials have scoffed at the notion that the Democrats' momentum is an existential threat to November victories.

Last week, state GOP chairman Evan Power reiterated he remains bullish about Trump and the party's candidates on Nov. 5, citing a massive voter advantage in the state, the turnout of Republicans in Tuesday's primary and a fundraising advantage he said speaks to enthusiasm.

"I know the Democrats love to tout numbers but when you don't have anything else you tout volunteer numbers," Power said.

In addition to a historic one million voter advantage over Democrats in the Sunshine State, Power pointed out the state GOP has racked up close to $14 million in donations in the past 10 weeks, a 7-to-1 fundraising advantage.

In the Aug. 20 primary, the GOP generated more votes for its candidates than Democrats, he added.

Looking ahead to the Nov. 5 election, Power said the Florida GOP has empowered its county chapters by "giving them materials and data to interact with voters."

He said the party is particularly reaching out to "low propensity voters" to encourage them to cast a ballot and "send the message that Florida leads the way." Power said the county chapters were sent hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature, and the demand for more remains unabated.

"Florida is the beacon of freedom for the rest of the nation and people want to keep it that way," he said. "Any time Nikki Fried talks about Florida being in play we're able to raise money because people don't want what she's selling."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.