'Dead heat': Trump pulls even with Harris in NBC News poll

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are deadlocked in the latest national NBC News poll, with Trump bolstered by Republicans coming back home to support him after last month's rough debate and a subsequent polling deficit, as well as by a favorable voter assessment of Trump's term as president.

These are among the findings of a new survey released three weeks before Election Day, which also shows Harris' popularity declining compared to a month ago, after she got a big summertime boost; a massive gender gap between support for Harris and Trump; and voters viewing abortion as a top motivating issue heading into the 2024 vote.

"As summer has turned to fall, any signs of momentum for Kamala Harris have stopped," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "The race is a dead heat."

McInturff said "headwinds" for Harris have helped narrow the presidential contest, including concerns that the vice president doesn't represent change from President Joe Biden and voters seeing Trump's presidency in a more positive light than Biden's.

"She is asking for another term from the incumbent party," McInturff said of Harris.

Still, underlining the poll is uncertainty about the election (with 10% of voters saying they might change their minds and a sliver of unclaimed voters still on the fence), an all-time-high share of voters believing that this presidential election will make "a great deal of difference" in their lives, and key challenges for both Harris and Trump. The third-party vote could play a role, too — Trump gets a small boost when third-party candidates are included in the ballot test, to a 1-point edge.

And in a finely balanced election, even