Donald Trump’s Silver Lining Amid Batch of Bad Polls

Former President Donald Trump may have a silver lining despite suffering a string of bad polling results following a strong debate performance by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Multiple polls conducted since Tuesday’s clash of the candidates in Philadelphia have shown Harris gaining a small advantage over Trump. Polling also suggests that a clear majority of Americans believe that the Democratic nominee defeated the Republican in the September 10 debate.

Even as Harris enjoys a small increase in support, Trump continues to maintain an edge in terms of which candidate is trusted more to handle the economy and immigration—issues that voters have consistently said are top concerns in this year’s election.

While the full impact of the debate, along with issues like Trump’s second alleged assassination attempt, may not yet be registering in polls released over the past week, the surveys mostly show a small to modest improvement for Harris.

Polls conducted by TIPP Insights showed that Harris grew her lead by just 1 percentage point, going from a 48 percent to 45 percent edge over Trump before the debate to a 47 percent to 43 percent advantage after the onstage clash.

The same 1-point gain was seen in a poll from Ipsos/Reuters conducted on September 11 and September 12, showing the vice president going from a 4-point lead before the debate to a 5-point lead afterward.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted from September 11 to September 13 showed support for Harris growing by 1 percent among all adults after the debate, while her advantage over the ex-president was the same as before the debate among registered and likely voters.

The poll found that 52 percent of likely voters favored Harris over Trump, who was supported by 46 percent. The same advantage was seen in a version of the poll taken just before the debate.

But while the former president was still trailing Harris by 6 points, he was also maintaining a 7-point edge over the vice president on the economy and inflation and a 10-point advantage on immigration.

Trump was maintaining a similar advantage on the issues in a poll that gave Harris her biggest overall post-debate bump last week—a YouGov/Yahoo News poll showing her up 50 percent to 45 percent over Trump among registered voters.

Harris had a lead of just 47 percent to 46 percent in a version of the same poll conducted from August 22 to August 26, shortly after she accepted her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.

Despite the surge in support for Harris, voters in the newer poll said that Trump would “do a better job handling” immigration than the vice president by a 47 percent to 37 percent margin, alongside a better job in handling “cost of living” by a 42 percent to 40 percent margin.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Harris and Trump campaigns via email on Monday.

A YouGov poll conducted partially before and partially after the debate—on September 10 and September 11—found Harris trailing Trump on eight different key issues in the election, including the economy, inflation, immigration, crime, veterans, taxes, national defense and foreign policy.

Harris was leading on issues of abortion rights, the environment and health care in the YouGov poll. Other polls suggest that the vice president is also leading Trump on issues like protecting democracy, addressing gun violence and improving race relations.