Kamala Harris’s approval rating one month before the election

There are exactly four weeks until Americans decide who wins the White House race on November 5, and Kamala Harris is enjoying her highest approval rating in three years.

Vice President Harris significantly tightened the race with Donald Trump after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate in July.

Although her approval rating has fluctuated since then, it has generally increased and was around 40 percent in August. Newsweek emailed the Trump and Harris campaigns seeking comment.

Now, as of Oct. 4, Harris has an approval rating of 45.6 percent, compared to a disapproval rating of 46.7 percent, according to polling aggregate FiveThirtyEight.

This -1.1 margin is the best Harris’s approval rating has been since October 2021, with 95 percent of polls expected to be in that range.

Former President Trump, for whom there is no current approval rating because he is out of office, had a 44.2 percent on FiveThirtyEight when he was president on October 4, 2020, about four weeks before the November 3 election that year. This left a gap of -8.1 percentage points between his approval rating and his rejection rate of 52.3 percent.

According to FiveThirtyEight, Trump’s favorability rating, which is based more on the public’s general opinion of him than the way he does his job, is 43 percent. It has an unfavorable rating of 52.6 percent (as of October 4 this year), which corresponds to a margin of -9.6 percent.

For comparison, Harris’ approval rating on FiveThirtyEight is 47.2 percent, compared to an disapproval rating of 46.5 percent, by a margin of +0.6 percent.

Just before the 2020 election, Trump was trailing Biden in FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast and Real Clear Politics’ average of swing state wins.

Likewise, this year’s version of FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast, last updated on Monday, shows Harris as the favorite to win.

However, political expert Steve Schier said Newsweek that while Harris is ahead in many polls, her lead in most polls is within the margins of error.

He said: “Harris has not effectively introduced himself to many voters. Their first appearance was accompanied by a lot of positive media messages, but the impression it created needed to be developed further.”

Early voting is already underway in 20 states, and candidates are in the final stages of their campaigns before Americans head to the polls.

The election will largely involve several key battleground states, with Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia being the most critical.

Newsweek has created a map showing which states Harris and Trump are leading in the polls, based on FiveThirtyEight’s Oct. 2 aggregates.

According to the FiveThirtyEight poll, Harris has a slim lead in the swing states Rust Belt and Nevada. She leads Michigan by 1.8 points, Nevada by 1 point, Pennsylvania by 0.7 points and Wisconsin by 1.8 points.

Trump is doing slightly better in the swing states of the Sun Belt. Overall, he leads Arizona by 1.4 points, Georgia by 1.2 points and North Carolina by 0.6 points.