Kamala Harris holds an edge over Donald Trump on several critical issues as the 2024 presidential race intensifies, a new poll shows.
According to the survey, conducted by AP and the University of Chicago between October 11 and 14, Harris leads Trump on 7 key issues, including abortion, election integrity, climate change, and taxes, as well as natural disaster relief, jobs and unemployment, and the cost of housing.
Trump leads on the cost of groceries and gas, immigration, crime, tariffs, and the situation in the Middle East.
Harris' biggest lead is on abortion, beating Trump among 1,072 adults by 23 points. Trump's biggest lead was on immigration, where he lead Harris by 8 points.
Both issues have been central to this election. Harris has been the Democratic Party's leading voice on reproductive rights, having launched a nationwide "fight for reproductive freedoms" tour this year and visiting a Minnesota branch of Planned Parenthood in March, while Trump has repeatedly blamed the Biden-Harris administration for the rise in illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, Harris also did well on climate change and election integrity, where she maintained an advantage of at least 20 percentage points among voters, while voters are split more evenly on whether Trump or Harris is better able to handle unemployment, the cost of groceries and housing, tariffs, or crime, as well as the situation in the Middle East.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.
A series of recent polls by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek found that abortion has overtaken immigration to become the second most important issue for voters heading into the 2024 election.
The economy was named the most important election issue for voters in every survey conducted since July 2023, regularly being cited by around 60 percent of respondents, while Abortion was cited as a key issue by 21 percent of respondents in the first poll of July 2023, and was cited by 38 percent of respondents in the latest poll of October 2024. By contrast, immigration was cited as a key issue by 30 percent of respondents in the first poll of July 2023, and was cited by 36 percent of respondents in the latest poll of October 2024.
"The attempt by both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to diminish the surging importance of immigration initially succeeded but ultimately failed, with immigration moving from a clear second earlier this year to fourth in terms of importance over the summer before recovering to being virtually tied with abortion for second, Philip van Scheltinga, director of research at Redfield & Wilton Strategies, previously told Newsweek.
"The Harris campaign has had some success in accentuating the issue of abortion, particularly among female and young voters. However, while abortion is now the most important issue for Harris voters, slightly above the economy, the primacy of this issue has not quite registered for the rest of the voting public and the swing voters who will decide this election," van Scheltinga added.
Other polls, including a recent survey conducted by Quantus Insights between October 15 and 17, have found that voters identified the economy and jobs (44 percent), immigration (21 percent), and health care and access to abortion (17 percent) as their top issues, with Trump more trusted on economic and immigration-related topics, while Harris is more trusted on health care and access to abortion, leading 53 percent to 36 percent.
Polling conducted exclusively for Newsweek recently found that supporters of the vice president want a tougher stance on tackling illegal immigration, with 53 percent of her supporters saying that the federal government should adopt a more hard-line approach.
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