A new poll of likely voters in Nevada shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by nearly six percentage points – the largest lead by a Democrat in a presidential poll of Nevadans this cycle.
While polling has been relatively low in Nevada since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, the vice president appears to have closed the gap between Trump and Biden, who has not been ahead of Trump in a single public poll in the state since October 2023.
A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of Nevada in late July has Harris ahead head-to-head by 2 percentage points – the first Democratic poll to lead this cycle – and the Cook Political Report moved Nevada back into the “undecided” category on Thursday after previously classifying it as “leaning Republican.”
This latest poll was conducted by David Wolfson of Decipher Ai, a pollster and lecturer at Columbia University. From August 3-5, 991 likely voters across Nevada were surveyed via SMS/text-to-web polling about the presidential and House elections. The margin of error is 3 percentage points statewide and between 6 and 7 percentage points for the House elections.
Although Wolfson and political strategist Woodrow Johnston, who also worked on the poll, worked as pollsters and consultants for Republicans, they received no commission for the poll. Wolfson and Johnston had previously collaborated on a poll for the Nevada presidential primary and correctly determined that former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley would lose to the state’s “None of These Candidates” option.
In the presidential election, Harris received 49.2 percent of the vote, while Trump received 43.6 percent. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received just 3.9 percent of the vote. Kennedy’s share of the vote is lower than the 8 to 10 percentage points he received on average when Biden was on the ballot. In an interview, Johnston said Kennedy’s dip in the polls reflects what typically happens to third-party candidates as the election approaches.
Harris’ lead in this poll may be an outlier, but it reflects Biden’s position at this point in the cycle in 2020, when Thirty-fiveEight Polls showed him ahead in Nevada by about 6 percentage points. Biden ultimately won the state by about 2.4 percentage points.
Johnston said Harris has been on a high polling streak since Biden dropped out – and the poll reflects a more typical result for a Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle.
“There was almost a collective sigh of relief that Joe Biden is not running and is not the nominee. I honestly believe that at this point in the race, anyone would be doing just as well in the polls,” he said.
The poll also found that the three Democrats in the Nevada House of Representatives are leading in their race for re-election – and that the race is in a closer race for Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) than he is used to.
In Southern Nevada, Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV), Susie Lee (D-NV), and Steven Horsford (D-NV) led by margins close to the 6- to 7-percentage-point margin of error for their districts.
In 2022, Lee was the closest of the three candidates, winning by 4 percentage points, but the poll showed Horsford winning by 4.3 percentage points over former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee.
Horsford won in 2022 by 4.8 percentage points against Sam Peters, a relatively unknown Republican, in a race that saw far less outside spending than in Congressional Districts 1 and 3.
Ultimately, all three seats remained in Democratic hands, and Republicans were far more reluctant to spend money in Southern Nevada—neither the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) nor the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) made ad reservations in Las Vegas this election cycle. However, the NRCC did add John Lee to its “Young Gun” program, marking its fight for additional support from the organization.
Johnston said Democrats’ advantages in the polls reflect Republicans’ lack of engagement at the national level.
“I thought Drew (Johnson) would do a little better, but that’s just not the case,” Johnston said. “But it’s somewhat reflective of the fact that the Congressional Leadership Fund is not spending money on any of these campaigns right now.”
Johnston said the poll shows there is an opportunity to capture Horsford’s district if Republican groups want to capture it – a chance for Republicans to capture the district for only the second time since the seat was created after redistricting in 2010. While the Third Congressional District is more suburban – a geographic area where Democrats have made gains in recent election cycles – the Fourth Congressional District includes parts of rural central Nevada, where Trump did well in the election.
The poll found that about 16 percent of voters in the 4th Congressional District are still undecided, with a margin of error of 6 percentage points.
In Congressional District 3, the poll showed Susie Lee leading by 6.1 percentage points over her opponent, Drew Johnson, a tax analyst and conservative columnist. The margin of error for the district was 6 percentage points, and about 9 percent are undecided.
Of the MPs, Lee had the most support with 48.5 percent.
And in Congressional District 1, where Titus faces a rematch with her 2022 Republican opponent Mark Robertson, the poll found the incumbent leading by 5.7 percentage points – almost the same as when she defeated Robertson in 2022. The margin of error for the district was 7 percentage points, and nearly 17 percent are undecided.
Finally, Republican Rep. Mark Amodei (NV) has won every election in his Northern Nevada district by 15 points or more. But this cycle, he is running not against a Democratic challenger but against independent Greg Kidd, a businessman who is self-funding his campaign and running an active advertising campaign.
According to the poll, Amodei is only 4.4 percentage points ahead of Kidd – still within the margin of error of 6 percentage points. But more than a third of voters are still undecided. Another third supports Amodei, while Kidd has 28.5 percent of the vote. The Republicans have controlled the district since it was founded in 1983.
Johnston pointed out that the poll was conducted before the stock market crash in Japan or Sen. Jacky Rosen’s (D-NV) endorsement of Kidd, both of which could affect the race. But even if a large percentage of voters are still undecided, he said the lead is a warning sign.
“If I were Amodei, I would be very worried right now,” he said.
And although the poll sheds a good light on the Democrats, Johnston warned against reading too much into the numbers.
“I don’t want to disparage my own poll, but I don’t think most polls before Labor Day should be taken so seriously,” he said.
