When Vice President Kamala Harris drank a Miller High Life beer with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, she did not prematurely celebrate a victory over Donald Trump. Instead, as part of her new media blitz, she once more painted him as a real menace, suggesting that his dispatch of Abbott Covid-19 testing devices was a sign that, for all his bluster, he never puts Americans first. “Everybody was scrambling to get these kits, these COVID test kits, and this guy, who’s president of the United States,” she said, “is sending them to Russia, this murderous dictator, for his personal use?”

Why indeed? As she dings Trump, Harris appears to be gaining on him. A new Reuters/IPSOS poll suggests that her lead over Donald Trump has enlarged to 47% to 40% in the race for the White House.

With a margin error of 4%, the poll indicates that Harris is blunting Trump’s longstanding edge on the economy and jobs. 43% of voters stated that Trump had a better approach to the economy than Harris who garnered 41%. In late July Trump enjoyed an 11% lead over Harris. In essence, it has evaporated. Perhaps this should not come entirely as a surprise.

The Federal Reserve has lowered interests rates, the stock market is booming, the inflation rate has slowed to 2.5%, the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.1% and the September jobs report showed the economy added 254,000 jobs.

This poll is consonant with a New York Times poll that indicated that Harris’ numbers against Trump are improving. The poll showed a 49% to 46% margin in favor of Harris. It also indicated that Harris almost doubled her support among Republican voters from 5% to 9%. Trump continues to lead among male voters by 11%. According to Republican pollster Frank Luntz, Harris is beginning to “cut through.” Luntz singled out her emphasis on freedom and capitalism as traditional Republican talking points that Harris has coopted.

If the polls are to be trusted, the race remains tight in the battleground states. But Trump is waging an unusual campaign. He plans to hold rallies at Coachella and at Madison Square Garden. He also will appear at a rally in Colorado on Saturday night.

Trump may relish the symbolism of him as a fearless invader taking it to the foe, but how devoting his energies to appearing in solidly blue states is supposed to fortify his actual support is a mystery that perhaps only he could explain.

For her part, Harris does appear to be running a skillful campaign. For all the handwringing among Democrats that she has lost her mojo and needs to recapture the verve of her early weeks as a candidate, there is no sign that her campaign is faltering. Quite the contrary. The surprising thing may be how well she is doing—and how resilient Trump’s own support remains. He remains a formidable opponent.

If Harris’s support continues to improve in the coming weeks, however, the election might well go from cliffhanger to a rout.

About the Author

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel. In 2008, his book They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons was published by Doubleday. It was named one of the one hundred notable books of the year by The New York Times. He is the author of America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.

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