With President Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race, how soon will pollsters have a read on how Vice President Kamala Harris is faring against former President Donald Trump? As Harris looks to officially begin her campaign, questions about her presidential viability have long swirled about. Early national polling suggests that Harris is trailing Trump, but Northeastern University polling experts say that there should be good data on the presumptive Harris-Trump matchup by the end of the week — with caveats.
That’s because for most pollsters — organizations that run, conduct and analyze public opinion polls, usually through surveys and questionnaires — collecting data on Harris in a two-way analysis (Harris vs. Trump) is a matter of simply slotting her in place of Biden, then tabulating the results. “And it’s not going to be very hard to swap in another name,” says Nick Beauchamp, associate professor of political science at Northeastern.
