Washington:

Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in three crucial battleground states, according to new polls published Saturday, apparently eroding the advantage the former president has enjoyed there over the past year.

The polls of likely voters by The New York Times and Siena College showed Harris leading Trump by an identical 50 percent to 46 per cent margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Under the US Electoral College voting system, those three populous Midwestern states are considered key to victory for either party. 

The polls are a reversal of surveys in those states which for nearly a year had shown Trump either tied with or slightly leading Democratic President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race last month and endorsed Harris instead.

Much can change in the nearly three months before the November 5 election. The polling showed voters still prefer Trump on the key issues of the economy and immigration, though Harris had a 24-point advantage when voters were asked whom they trust on the issue of abortion.

Democrats, in any case, have taken heart in the surge of enthusiasm that has greeted Harris’s candidacy, with many expressing relief after 81-year-old Biden stepped aside.

Her announcement Tuesday of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate also appears to have energized Democrats.

The Harris-Walz surge helped cut short a rise in support for Trump that followed the July 13 attempt on his life and the Republicans’ successful national convention last month.

But Harris has enjoyed an even bigger bump in favorability — up 10 points among registered voters in Pennsylvania in just a month, the Times/Siena polling found.

Voters said they saw her as more intelligent than Trump and having a better temperament to govern.

Trump, his running mate J.D. Vance and other Republicans have tried an array of attacks meant to weaken Harris — with Trump even questioning her racial identity.

But the new polls show Democrats strongly supporting the younger and more vigorous Harris who, with Walz, has been campaigning at a furious pace this week in swing states.

Among Democrats, voter satisfaction with their choice of candidates has shot up by 27 points in the three Midwestern states since May, the polls found. 

Three months ago, it was Republicans who expressed a higher level of satisfaction.

The surveys were conducted between August 5 and 9, with at least 600 voters in each state.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US President Joe Biden hit out at Donald Trump on Saturday for his “dark vision” for the country and said he will resume campaign next week to expose his Republican rival’s Project 2025 agenda amidst Democrats’ calls for him to quit the race.

In a thread of 13 posts on X, Biden, 81, said he had the “distinct misfortune of watching” Trump’s speech, which he fact-checked and tore down the latter’s claims one by one, at times, supporting it by what his government did on that issue late on Friday night local time.

Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 a few days ago, is in isolation at his home in Delaware. After this week’s rest, he is expected to hit the campaign trail next week as he aims to seek re-election.

“I’m stuck at home with COVID, so I had the distinct misfortune of watching Donald Trump’s speech to the RNC. What the hell was he talking about?” Biden started with this post on X while poking fun at the keynote speech of the opposition party’s presidential nominee for the November 5 election at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday.

Biden then added 11 other posts each fact-checking issues, including what Trump, 78, did with COVID-19, his claim about Social Security and Medical, tax cuts, inflation, and Project 2025 agenda where Trump wants “to throw immigrants into mass detention camps.” The post which said, “He praised Hannibal Lecter. Donald, Hannibal Lecter is not real. And he is a cannibal,” almost went viral garnering the most retweets and likes among other posts in the thread.

The thread ended with: “And if you’re with me, pitch in to our campaign” and had a poster showing Trump and his running mate J D Vance and a caption: ‘Protect Democracy. Defeat Trump-Vance.’ Meanwhile, in a statement issued by his campaign, Biden said: “Donald Trump’s dark vision for the future is not who we are as Americans. Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box.” “I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms and create opportunity for everyone,” he said.

“For over 90 minutes, he focused on his own grievances, with no plan to unite us and no plan to make life better for working people,” said the president referring to Trump’s speech.

“He avoided mentioning his Project 2025 agenda, but still proudly flaunted the worst of MAGA (Make America Great Again) extremism,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s mention of immigrants. “Americans know exactly where he wants to take this country.” One of the priorities of Project 2025, published by the Heritage Foundation, is to create a roadmap for the first 180 days of the new Trump administration to quickly reorient every federal agency around its conservative vision. It also aims to recruit and train thousands of people loyal to the conservative movement to fill federal government positions, according to CNN.

The Biden-Harris campaign alleged: “Trump is still the same twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon consumed by revenge and hell-bent on seeking retribution in a second term.” Days after Biden’s disastrous performance against Trump in the first presidential debate, Democrats remained split on whether he can beat the former president in November and as of Friday at least 10 Democrats had joined the chorus calling on him to step back. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)