FDU Poll: Harris Leads Trump by 7 Points

Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris leads the Republican nominee Donald Trump by 7 points nationally in a head-to-head matchup, according to a new poll released by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Harris leads Trump 50% to 43%, according to the survey released Friday, with 7% responding "someone else." Harris’ lead is buoyed by a 5-point edge among independent voters (38% to 33%), according to the poll. Nearly a third of independents (29%) said they would vote for "someone else," the survey said.

Trump’s strongest support comes from “men who hold traditionally masculine identities,” according to the poll.

“Trump has built his political career around a very specific performance of whiteness and masculinity,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson, and the executive director of the poll. “In the past, that’s been seen as a strength, but it’s no longer clear that it’s working.”

FDU’s results mark a significant outlier among other national polls; the RealClearPolitics polling average has Harris with a 1.5-point lead over Trump.

FDU pollsters wrote that identity politics played a significant role in Harris’ lead. Trump and Harris are in a virtual tie among voters who weren’t asked about the race or sex of the candidates, FDU wrote. But Harris owns a 10-point lead (52% to 42%) when sex of the candidates is mentioned and a 14-point lead (53% to 39%) when race is mentioned, according to the poll.

“When voters are thinking about race or sex, Trump’s support just plummets,” said Cassino. “All the time, we hear strategists and pundits saying that Democratic candidates shouldn’t talk about identity, but these results show that making race and sex salient to voters is bad for Trump and boosts Harris.”

Cassino added: “Race matters in elections, but it’s not inevitable that voters are thinking about it. Trump does reasonably well among nonwhite voters so long as they’re not thinking about race: Once they are, we see a huge shift to Harris.”

FDU surveyed 801 registered voters from Aug. 17-20. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.