Bombshell poll shows one party's candidate ahead for first time in 16 months

A bombshell poll from the Wall Street Journal showed the Democratic candidate in the presidential race leading for the first time in 18 months.

Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump 48% to 47%, the poll found in a head-to-head test of the two candidates and she led 47% to 45% when independent and third-party candidates were included.

It is a stark contrast from when Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee and consistently trailed Trump in the polls. 

Friday's poll from the Wall Street Journal marked the first time the Democratic contender has led since April of last year. Trump had a 2-point lead over Harris in the Journal's head-to-head poll in late July. 

The Journal conducted the poll after the Democratic National Convention concluded. Harris wa expected to get a bounce out of the event.

But she's also leading Trump in the RealClearPolitics polling average, by almost two points. 

The race appears closer when looking at battleground state polls. 

A Emerson College Polling/The Hill poll released on Thursday reveal Harris and Trump are in a dead tie.

Of the seven battleground states, Trump takes Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Harris takes Georgia, Michigan and Nevada and the frontrunners tie in Pennsylvania.

Digging deeper into the Wall Street Journal polls shows some red flags for the Trump campaign.

Harris' numbers remain high despite Trump's repeated attacks on her. 

Both parties are pushing to define Harris as she only became the nominee about a month ago. The majority of Democratic National Convention last week was focused on introducing her to voters. 

About 84% of people in the poll said they knew enough about Harris to have a firm opinion of her, and 49% hold a favorable view of her, equal to the share with an unfavorable view.

About 45% viewed Trump favorably and 53% unfavorably.

However, what may be the biggest warning for the Trump campaign are the economic numbers.

Trump holds an 8-point advantage over Harris when voters are asked who would best handle the economy and a 5-point lead on handling inflation.

But, late last year, Trump led Biden by about 20 points on both those issues.

That indicates Harris is making gains on the issue and, that despite the attempts of the Trump campaign, voters aren't taking her to task for Biden's handling of the economy even though she is his vice president.  

The economy is the biggest vulnerability for Harris. Voters have been angry about the high cost of food, gas and housing. Biden was given seriously low marks for his handling of inflation and that brought down his overall approval numbers. 

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Harris defended her and Biden's work on the economy, arguing the COVID pandemic and Trump left them in a tough spot.

'When Joe Biden and I came in office during the height of a pandemic. We saw over 10 million jobs were lost people,' she said. 'Hundreds people that day were dying because of COVID, the economy had crashed in large part. All mismanagement by Donald Trump of that crisis. When we came in, our highest priority was to do what we could to rescue America.'

But when asked why she hadn't implemented any of the policy ideas she was pushing as part of her campaign when she was vice president, Harris, again, returned to the pandemic: 'We had to recover as an economy and we have done that. I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%.'

She went on to point out that the Biden administration had lowed the cost of insulin, created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, renewed the child tax credit, and improved the supply chain.

The Wall Street Journal poll also looked at the running mates.

It found voters view Harris's running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, more favorably than unfavorably, 46% to 40%.

Meanwhile Trump's running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, was seen as more unfavorable than favorable, 50% to 40%.