A new national survey of likely U.S. voters by Emerson College Polling found that both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have 49% support in the 2024 presidential election. One percent plans to support a third-party candidate and one percent is undecided.

“With 10 days until Election Day, the national poll comes to a divided electorate,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “In this poll, independents report the vote for Trump is 49% to 46% — a reversal from 2020, when they reported voting for Biden by about 10 percentage points.”

“Male voters are ahead for Trump by 13 points, 55% to 42%, a larger margin than in 2020, while women are ahead for Harris by 10 points, 54% to 44%, falling short of Biden’s support in 2020,” Kimball added.

When asked when they decided to run for president, 80% answered more than a month ago, 10% in the past month, 7% in the past week and 4% not yet.

• 62% of voters under 30 made their decision over a month ago, while 20% made their decision in the past month, 12% in the past week and 5% have not yet made their decision.

Regardless of who they vote for, 50% believe Trump will win the election and 49% believe Harris will win the election.

Over half of likely voters (53%) disapprove of the job Joe Biden is doing as president, while 41% approve.

Half of voters (50%) have a positive opinion of Harris and the other half have a negative opinion of the vice president. 49 percent have a positive opinion of Trump, while 51 percent have a negative opinion of the former president.

The most important issue for voters remains the economy at 45%, followed by immigration (14%), threats to democracy (14%), access to abortion (7%), health care (6%) and crime (4%).

A majority of voters think legalizing marijuana nationwide is a good idea, while 40% think it’s a bad idea.

“Marijuana legalization is most supported by voters under 30: 78% who think it’s a good idea, and as age increases that number drops to 36% of voters 70 and older who say the same,” Kimball added.

Voters were asked which presidential candidate they thought was more down-to-earth. Half of voters think Harris is more down-to-earth, 43% think Trump is more down-to-earth and 7% think neither candidate is down-to-earth.

“While female voters vote about 10 percent for Harris, they think she is the more grounded candidate by a margin of 20 percent, 57 percent to 37 percent,” Kimball said. “Men think Trump is more down-to-earth by eight percentage points, 50% to 42%.”

methodology

The Emerson College Polling statewide survey was conducted October 23-24, 2024. The sample of likely voters, n=1,000, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3 percentage points. The datasets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, party registration and region based on modeling of likely voters in 2024. Voter turnout modeling is based on voter registration and election data.

It is important to keep in mind that subsets based on demographic characteristics such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity result in higher credibility intervals when the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the survey’s rating range, and with a 95% confidence interval, a survey will fall outside the rating range 1 in 20 times.

Data were collected by contacting cell phones via MMS-to-Web text, landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) (both lists provided by Aristotle), and an online voter panel provided by CINT. The survey was offered in English.

For all questions asked in this survey, including the exact wording, as well as full results, demographics, and crosstabs, see Full Results. This survey was sponsored by Emerson College.

FULL RESULTSS