https://www.ft.com/content/5f68cc51-f608-4fab-bfa3-8a9187236116Kamala Harris has consolidated her polling lead over Donald Trump on economic issues, especially among voters who watched the presidential debate last week, according to the first big economy-focused election poll since the televised showdown.
For the second month in a row, the FT-Michigan Ross poll showed Harris with a narrow advantage over Trump on stewardship of the economy, with 44 per cent of registered voters saying they trusted the Democratic vice-president to handle the economy and 42 per cent backing the Republican former president. Last month, she led 42 per cent to 41 per cent.
But Harris fared even better with voters who tuned into Tuesday’s presidential debate, which was watched by an estimated 67mn Americans, according to Nielsen.
Of the nearly three-quarters of respondents who said they watched all or part of the 90-minute debate, 48 per cent said they trusted Harris more to manage the economy, compared with 42 per cent for Trump. Among those who said they did not watch the debate, Trump had an advantage, with 41 per cent trusting the former president and just 35 per cent favouring Harris. The poll was conducted in the two days immediately following last week’s debate.
It comes just a few days before the Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut US interest rates, a signal it is confident that a period of high inflation has been vanquished and the central bank is prepared to lower borrowing costs.
The survey results continued to show that Harris is trusted significantly more than her boss, US President Joe Biden, on the economy. Since the Financial Times and University of Michigan Ross School of Business began polling on economic issues nearly a year ago, Biden never beat Trump on the question of who voters trusted more to manage the economy. Harris’s support from 44 per cent of Americans is an eight-point improvement over Biden.
