Harris leading Trump by 3 points in Virginia survey

Vice President Harris holds a 3-point lead over former President Trump in Virginia, a new survey found.

The Roanoke College poll, published Tuesday, found Harris with 47 percent of support among likely voters in the Old Dominion State in a head-to-head match-up with Trump, who received 44 percent of support. The poll also found the vice president maintains a 3-point lead over the former president, even when other candidates are included in the race, such as independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West.  

Roughly 8 percent of likely voters said they would vote for someone other than Trump or Harris when asked about a hypothetical two-way match-up, per the survey.

When asked if they would vote for someone other than the two front-runners in a six-way race, 13 percent of respondents said they would. This includes 6 percent who would vote for Kennedy and 2 percent who would vote for West.

The poll also noted that President Biden’s withdrawal from the race made a small difference in voters’ responses. When asked in the new poll what their voting plans were before Biden dropped out, the GOP nominee had a 6-point lead, according to the poll.

About 43 percent of voters in the commonwealth said they would have voted for Trump, 37 percent said Biden, and 8 percent said they would have backed Kennedy. Just 3 percent said they were not planning to vote in a Biden-Trump match-up

“The switch from Biden to Harris made a difference in Virginia, but perhaps not as great as some may have thought,” Harry Wilson, senior political analyst for Roanoke College's Institute for Policy and Opinion Research, said in a press release.

“The news for Harris is certainly better than it was for Biden, but her three-point lead is still within the margin of error,” he added.

Many national and swing state polls have shown Harris closing the gap with Trump or narrowly leading the race in the weeks since launching her campaign. According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average, Harris has a 3-point lead over the former president, with 49.4 percent support to his 46.4 percent.

The Roanoke College poll was conducted Aug. 12-16 among 691 respondents in Virginia. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.