Kamala Harris remains ahead of Donald Trump as successful DNC contributes to cementing her lead

SEATTLE - After a successful Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris is maintaining her lead over over Donald Trump in national poll aggregators, according to The Washington Post.

By gathering the best available national and state-level polling data and factoring how citizens in each state voted in the last two presidential elections, the Post's polling average is seeing Harris expand her lead in the Midwest, now holding a 3% advantage in Wisconsin, 2% in Pennsylvania and even tiny lead of less than one percentage point in Michigan.

On the other hand, former president Donald Trump continues to lead in the Sun Belt states. Overall, he has an advantage over the Democratic nominee in four of the seven states considered to be battleground states.

Concretely, Trump holds a 1% lead over Harris in the states of North Carolina and Arizona, 2% in Nevada and a 3% lead in the state of Georgia.

But a record-breaking Democratic National Convention in which the Harris campaign raised $82 million in four days could prove to be crucial ahead of this year's presidential elections.

According to a memo from Harris campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon, a third of the week's donations were from first-time contributors. On top of that, two-thirds of the first time donors were women, according to the Harris campaign. Since launching her campaign last month, Vice President Harris has raised $540 million.

Another national poll conducted by Angus Reid Global found that after the Democratic National Convention, Harris held a five-point lead in a head-to-head against Trump (47% to 42%). That poll was conducted among 1,758 registered voters from Aug. 19 to Aug. 23, the same week as the DNC.

According to data from the Angus Reid poll, Harris continues to hold a substantial lead among 18- to 34-year-old voters, with 59% favoring Harris compared to 30% for Trump. Harris also has a considerable advantage among Black and Latino voters, where she has the support of 67% and 57% of the groups, respectively.

Most national aggregate polls are placing Harris at the top of the presidential race. RealClearPolitics shows Harris up by 1.5 percentage points and The New York Times aggregate places her with a two-percentage point lead. Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin also shows Harris leading, putting her at 48.9% compared to Trump's 44.8%.

Despite Harris's lead over her Republican counterpart, the presidential election is expected to take another turn after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Friday that he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump ahead of November 5.

According to Tim Malloy, a polling analyst for the Quinnipiac University Poll, said Kennedy Jr. started out as "very attractive to minorities and young voters, but in the last few months, he has just been in a dive as far as popularity goes."

Before dropping out of the race, independent candidate Kennedy Jr. had been drawing about 5% in national polls. "I don't know what he'll do for Trump," Malloy said.