Vice President Kamala Harris has expanded her lead over Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump in two national polls.
With just over a week to go until Election Day, the latest ABC News/Ipsos and Big Village polls gave Harris a slightly bigger lead than their surveys earlier in October.
But with her lead close to the survey’s margins of error and other national polls indicating the race has tightened, Harris and Trump appear locked in a tight race that will likely come down to small numbers of voters as both strive to carry enough of the battleground states to win in the Electoral College.
The latest ABC News/Ipsos poll has Harris leading by four points among likely voters, with 51 percent support compared to Trump’s 47 percent. Her lead is smaller among all registered voters, at 49 percent to Trump’s 47 percent.
The poll, conducted online between October 18 and 22, surveyed 2,392 registered voters and 1,913 likely voters. The margin of error was 2 percentage points for registered voters and 2.5 percent for likely voters.
Newsweek reached out to both Harris and Trump’s campaigns for comment via email on Monday.
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An ABC News/Ipsos survey conducted earlier this month gave Harris a two-point lead among both likely voters (50 percent to Trump’s 48 percent) and registered voters (49 percent to 47 percent.)
That survey, conducted online between October 4 and 8, surveyed 2,226 registered voters and 1,714 likely voters, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points for registered voters and 2.5 percentage points for likely voters.
Meanwhile, the most recent Big Village survey gave Harris an almost seven-point lead over Trump.
The survey found 51.6 percent of likely voters were backing Harris, while 45 percent were supporting Trump. Among registered voters, Harris was almost six points ahead, with 49 percent support compared to Trump’s 43.2 percent.
The poll surveyed 1,592 likely voters and 1,739 registered voters between October 18 and October 23 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.
The Big Village survey conducted earlier in October had Harris leading by a smaller margin among both registered and likely voters. Among registered voters Harris had 48.7 percent compared to Trump’s 44.6 percent, and among likely voters she had 49.9 percent support compared to Trump’s 46.4 percent.
That survey was conducted between October 2 and 4 among 755 likely voters and 841 registered voters, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
“The national polls are so close that it’s easy to over-read small blips. Due to how the Electoral College advantages Trump, Harris will likely need a net margin in the popular vote of around 3-4 percentage points to clear the hurdle,” Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science and director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek.
“Polls in swing states still matter more than anything, and there’s nothing in those data to suggest the race is anything but a toss-up at this late stage.”
According to an average of polls by FiveThirtyEight, Harris is leading nationally by 1.4 percentage points as of Sunday.
She was leading by 2.6 points at the start of October. Her biggest lead in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average since she entered the race in late July was 3.7 points on August 23.