Controversial national poll shows one candidate with a seven-point lead in the 2024 presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

A new poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris widening her lead over former President Donald Trump among voters nationwide, with just over two months to go until Election Day.

According to a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Democratic presidential candidate has a lead, largely thanks to growing support among non-white voters.

The poll gives Harris 50 percent support to Trump’s 43 percent, with another 7 percent saying they would vote for someone else in the upcoming election.

When voters are asked to think about race and gender in the upcoming election, the vice president’s lead over Trump grows.

Each candidate has strong support from their parties. Among independent voters, Harris leads Trump by 38 percent to 33 percent.

The poll tested the role of race and gender in voter perceptions as part of a more controversial question-posting experiment.

One-third of respondents were asked the question “Race and ethnicity of the candidate” first as part of the survey, while another third were asked the question “Whether the candidate is male or female” first as part of the survey.

The poll was able to compare how voters viewed the race when they took race and gender into account, and how voters who didn’t, viewed the race. That had a big impact.

When voters were not yet prepared for the race or gender of the candidate, the race between Harris and Trump was effectively tied: 47 percent to 48 percent.

But when the list of issues included the candidate’s gender, Harris led 52 percent to 42 percent. When race came up, Harris led 14 points, 53 percent to 39 percent.

“When voters think about race or gender, support for Trump drops dramatically,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson and executive director of the poll.

Cassino pointed out that strategists and pundits often suggest that Democratic candidates shouldn’t talk about identity, but the polls tell a different story.

A new poll found Harris ahead of Trump by seven points, but also found the vice president got a boost as voters were primed for the first time to think about race and gender in the poll

When it came to race, the biggest shift in support came from nonwhite voters. When voters were unprepared to think about race, Harris led Trump 55 percent to 39 percent among nonwhite voters.

When voters turned their attention to race, support for Trump fell ten percentage points to just 29 percent.

Among white voters, Trump held an 11-point lead over Harris, but when white voters focused on race, Harris narrowed the gap slightly: 47 percent to 44 percent.

Also on the gender front, mentioning the candidate’s gender in the polls led to less support for Trump.

Among women, priming voters to think about candidates’ gender gave Harris a huge boost, while Trump’s support fell. The net change resulted in Harris’s lead over Trump at 59 percent, compared to 33 percent among primed voters.

The poll also changed when respondents were asked how masculine or feminine they considered themselves.

Men who identified as “all masculine” favored Trump over Harris by 64 percent to 30 percent, while all other men favored Harris by a 20 percentage point margin.

The women who claimed to be “completely feminine” were not much different from other women, with both groups favoring Harris by 20 percent.

“We talk about the gender gap in voting as being between men and women,” Cassino said. “But it’s not. The real gender gap is between men who hold on to traditionally masculine identities, and everyone else.”