https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/21/harris-trump-economy-poll-electionDonald Trump has lost his advantage over Kamala Harris on who is best qualified to manage the economy, new polls suggest.
With millions of voters already casting early ballots for the presidency ahead of election day on 5 November, a fresh Associated Press/NORC poll says Harris, the Democratic nominee, has taken a slight lead when it comes to some key economic questions that concern middle-class voters.
The finding consolidates a trend from the the same poll last month, which showed Harris had almost closed a previously large deficit with Trump, the former US president and Republican nominee, on who could best handle economic issues.
The economy consistently tops voters’ priority list.
The latest poll asked more detailed questions than the previous survey, concluding that 46% prefer Harris’s policies on taxes for the middle class, compared to 35% for Trump. The US vice-president also has a slight edge on the cost of housing, while voters are evenly split on which of the pair has the better policies on the prices of groceries and petrol, and creating jobs or addressing unemployment.
The boost to Harris comes even as a majority of voters, 62%, believe the economy is in poor condition, compared with 38% who say the opposite. The outlook is more positive than in October last year, when nearly three in four people said the economy was in poor shape.
The Trump campaign has long sought to make inflation and rising living costs a focal point of its critique of Joe Biden’s presidency. Harris, since replacing Biden as the Democrats’ nominee in July, has launched a counteroffensive that involves putting proposals for an “opportunity economy” at the heart of her campaign message – including a pledge to give first-time buyers $25,000 towards a down payment on a new home.
