- A new poll from the Wall Street Journal has found that Donald Trump has opened up a lead over Kamala Harris. He's leading her by about two percentage points, which is a change from our last poll, which had her up by two percentage points. What this essentially means is in the final weeks of the campaign, when the candidates are really trying to make their closing arguments to voters, Donald Trump appears to be having the momentum, putting Kamala Harris on her back foot in the closing days of the race. We've been asking people in our poll, What do you think about the job Donald Trump did when he was president? Since he left office, and in our most recent poll, he notched his highest rating yet at 52%. Some of the top issues that voters care about, immigration, the economy, crime, Donald Trump already had an advantage over Harris on those issues, but our new poll found that he had expanded his lead.

Something that we hear from voters when we're on the campaign trail that might help illuminate that finding is people say that they just feel like they were better off when Donald Trump was president, or they feel like the economy was heading in a better direction. And it's notable that this is coming right in the final days of the race where ballots are just being mailed in, early voting is still going on. So it's a good sign for him that voters are recalling his presidency in favorable terms, the most favorable terms that we've seen in our poll. Another big thing that stood out to me that might explain Trump's momentum is that Kamala Harris's approval rating appears to be going down. Voters, when we talk to them anecdotally and also in public polling, still don't seem to really understand exactly what she stands for and why. And it's something that the Trump campaign has tried to exploit by linking her to some of the more unpopular policy positions.

advanced by her boss, President Biden. - Kamala Harris can't say one thing that she'd do differently from Sleepy Joe Biden. Not one thing. - And a really good example of Trump and his allies trying to yoke Harris to the Biden administration is on immigration. Trump has basically championed this issue, not just in this campaign, but in his previous ones. And it's something where voters seem to give him the edge. - She should resign in disgrace for what she's done to our country, not run for president. (audience cheering) She was the border czar. - And the fact that we're seeing her favorability and her job approval as vice president go down will suggest to me that Donald Trump has an edge in defining his opponent at a time where she really wants to find herself. Abortion is the one issue that we tested where Harris had a clear advantage over Trump. And when we asked voters who was mentally up to the job,

Harris also had an edge over Trump on that question too. Who's the change agent? Who's the candidate that voters feel like will take the country forward? Is it the former president who's already been elected, or is it the incumbent vice president who people get to judge her on her performance right now? And we put that question of voters in our poll, and overwhelmingly they said that Donald Trump was the change agent. With less than two weeks to go, you'll likely see Donald Trump continue to try to press his advantage where he's strongest on the economy and immigration, and Kamala Harris try to peel away those undecided voters and get her base to turn out in the swing states by continuing to portray Donald Trump as mentally unstable and also a threat to abortion rights. But this race is still incredibly close, and who wins will likely come down to how those undecided voters break. (mysterious music)

Trump Takes Lead Over Harris in Closing Weeks of 2024 Race, WSJ Poll Finds | WSJ

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