Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump 42 per cent to 37 per cent in the race for the November 5 US presidential election, according to an Ipsos poll published on Thursday.

The poll found Harris had widened her lead since a July 22-23 Reuters/Ipsos survey, which found her up 37 per cent to 34 per cent over Trump.

The nationwide poll of 2,045 US adults, conducted August 2-7, found 4 per cent of those surveyed backed independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr, down from 10 per cent in July.

Ipsos conducted the August poll independently. The poll, conducted online, had a margin of error of around 3 percentage points.

In a separate poll, Ipsos found Harris leading Trump 42 per cent to 40 per cent in the seven states where the election was closest in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That result did not break down results for individual states.

Harris entered the race on July 21 when President Joe Biden, 81, folded his campaign and endorsed Harris following a disastrous debate performance on June 27 against Trump.

Reuters/Ipsos polls had mostly shown Biden and Trump tied while the president was still in the race, although Biden was performing worse than he had at the same point in the 2020 election, in which he defeated Trump.

The August Ipsos survey found more voters associated Trump than Harris with the word “patriot” – a regular part of Trump’s campaign speeches – as well as with “weird,” a word that Harris supporters have used to taunt Trump in recent weeks.

• A Reuters report