Vice President Kamala Harris got some very welcome news on Sunday in the form of a new NBC News poll that found her leading Donald Trump by five points nationally. But perhaps the most significant finding in the survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted from Sept. 13-17 is her massive increase in popularity since taking over for Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in July.
Compared to July, when Harris had a 32 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval rating (nearly identical to Biden), the new poll finds 48 percent of respondents view her positively and 45 percent negatively. The 3-point net positive approval stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s net negative 13-point result that has remained static over the same period.
As NBC News’ national political correspondent—and data geek—Steve Kornacki and Meet the Press host Kristen Welker explained on Sunday, that 16-point turnaround is the largest favorability increase for any politician NBC has measured since George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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“We were seeing numbers like this for years for Kamala Harris,” Kornacki said of her previous figures, “now you’re seeing a very different story.”
Also speaking on Meet the Press, political analyst Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of The Cook Political Report, pointed out that the new polling shows Harris “is seen as the more likely victor,” which she said means the narrative “has shifted appreciably to Harris' benefit.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times’ chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, called the new NBC survey arguably Harris’ “best poll result since the debate,” and “not just because she’s up 5 points,” but “because it’s the kind of poll (the kind of poll once called the ‘gold standard’ a decade ago) that hadn’t produced a good national result for her in a while.”
When third-party candidates were added in, Harris advantage over Trump actually jumped to 6 points, 47 percent to 41 percent, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 2 percent, Jill Stein at 2 percent and Libertarian Chase Oliver at 1 percent.
And yet, the Harris team is not taking anything for granted. In response to the poll results, which still fall within the margin of error, top Harris campaign adviser Brian Fallon tweeted, “Still an underdog in this race.”
