Ft poll, Kamala Harris outperforms Trump on handling the economy: Americans have more confidence in the Dem nominee

For the first time Kamala Harris surpassed her rival Donald Trump on one of the two issues where he has always been ahead: according to a poll by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, 42% of Americans say they trust the Democratic presidential nominee more to handle the economy, compared to 41% for the tycoon. While the former president's percentage remained unchanged from last month, Harris gained 7 points over Joe Biden's numbers in July.

"The fact that voters were more positive about Harris than about Biden ... says a lot about how badly Biden was doing and how well Harris is doing," said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School. Despite strong growth and jobs data in the United States, Biden struggled to convince voters that his economic policies were benefiting them, a trend that continued after his retirement from the presidential campaign. Americans still overwhelmingly cite inflation as their top concern ahead of the November election, and the poll showed that only 19% of voters believe they are better off today than when Biden took office in 2021.

But the new Ft-Michigan Ross poll also showed that Harris may be able to distance himself from Biden on economic issues. As many as 60 per cent of respondents said he should either completely break with the president's economic policies or 'make major changes' to his platform. Harris also enjoyed a significantly higher approval rating than Biden, with 46% of registered voters saying they approved of the job he was doing as vice president, compared to 41% liking the president's job.

Kamala Harris is nine points ahead of Donald Trump among young voters. This is according to a poll by SocialSphere, which found that the vice-president has 51 per cent support among readers aged between 18 and 29 in key states against Trump's 42 per cent.