A recent poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center (SACSC) at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) finds Vice President Kamala Harris’s debate performance has bolstered her standing in New Hampshire, where she now leads former President Donald Trump by 8 points (51%-43%), slightly up from her 7-point lead in August. Her strength comes from solid partisan support, with 95% of Democrats backing her, while Trump secures 87% of Republicans. Harris also leads among undeclared voters, 53%-36%.
Harris holds a 13-point lead (54%-41%) among debate viewers. A significant 86% of respondents report watching the debate, and 75% of viewers that claim the debate will impact their decision about whom to support for president report that they will vote for Harris. New Hampshire voters largely saw Harris as the debate winner, with 58% naming her victorious, compared to 22% for Trump, and 18% expressing dissatisfaction with both candidates. The debate attracted over 65 million viewers, 15 million more than the Biden-Trump debate.
Neil Levesque, executive director of the NH Institute of Politics, noted, “Despite high voter engagement with the debate, candidate favorability remains stable. Harris holds a 51%-48% favorability, unchanged from August, but the polarized environment offers little room for growth. Trump has slightly improved his favorability to 43%-57%, up from 42%-58%. He maintains strong leads on key issues like the economy and inflation (66%-26%) and border security (94%-3%). Trump still has opportunities to gain ground by focusing on these concerns.”
These results are from a Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll based on online surveys of 2241 New Hampshire likely voters. Surveys were collected between September 11th and 12th, 2024, from cell phone users randomly drawn from a sample of registered voters reflecting the demographic and partisan characteristics of the voting population. Names were presented in random order for the favorability and ballot tests. The survey has an overall margin of sampling error of +/- 2.1% with a confidence interval of 95%. The data are weighted for age, gender, geography, and education based on a voter demographic model derived from historical voting
patterns, but are not weighted by party registration or party identification.
Founded in 2001, the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College provides a nonpartisan forum for discussion and debate. It seeks to develop programming, and to foster scholarship and dialogue, encompassing a diverse range of political topics, opinions and issues. The Institute serves as a resource for students, scholars, politicians, and the general public.