Kamala Harris records the biggest jump in popularity since George W. Bush after 9/11

Vice President Kamala Harris received some very welcome news on Sunday in the form of a new NBC News poll that shows her leading Donald Trump by five percentage points nationwide. But perhaps the most significant finding from the survey of 1,000 likely voters, conducted Sept. 13-17, is her massive surge in popularity since she replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in July.

Compared to July, when Harris had an approval rating of 32% and an unapproval rating of 50% (almost identical to Biden), the new poll shows that 48% of respondents view her favorably and 45% unfavorably. The three percentage points of net positive approval contrast sharply with Trump’s 13-point net negative rating, which remained unchanged over the same period.

As NBC News national political correspondent – ​​and data geek – Steve Kornacki and Meet the press Moderator Kristen Welker said Sunday that the 16-percentage-point turnaround was the largest increase in popularity for a politician that NBC has measured since George W. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“We’ve seen numbers like this for Kamala Harris for years,” Kornacki said of her previous numbers, “now we’re seeing a completely different story.”

In the meantime, The New York TimesSenior political analyst Nate Cohn called the new NBC poll Harris’ “best polling result since the debate,” “not just because she’s five points ahead,” but “because it’s the kind of poll (the kind that was once considered the ‘gold standard’ a decade ago) that hasn’t given her a good national showing in a long time.”

When third-party candidates were included, Harris’ lead over Trump actually increased to six percentage points, 47% to 41%, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 2%, Jill Stein at 2% and Libertarian Chase Oliver at 1%.

And yet the Harris team is taking nothing for granted. In response to the poll numbers, which are still within the margin of error, Harris’ top campaign adviser Brian Fallon tweeted: “Still an underdog in this race.”

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