Voter Sentiment: Harris outshines Biden among young and non-white voters

A new Wall Street Journal (WSJ) poll reveals that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the presidential race. The survey highlights a boost in Harris’s support among non-white voters and shows that Democrats are now much more excited about the campaign. In a head-to-head race, former President Trump leads Vice-President Harris by 49% to 47%. However, this is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1% points. Earlier this month, Trump had a six-point lead over President Biden before Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris.

In a poll that included Robert F Kennedy Jr and other Independent candidates, Harris secured 45% of the total votes, while Trump bagged 44%. Kennedy had the support of 4% and 5% of the voters were undecided. In the last poll, Biden was six points behind in a similar multicandidate race. Harris has been successful in rebuilding the coalition that helped Biden win in 2020, which had been weakening due to concerns about his health. Black, Latino and young voters showed more support for her than they did for Biden, according to a Journal survey conducted after his poor debate performance on June 27.

Changes in the demographics of Democratic support could impact the states where Harris may compete against Trump, who is running for a third time. Increased support from non-white voters could boost her chances in such diverse battleground states as Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina, where Biden had been struggling.

In the two-way race, Harris had the support of 63% of non-white voters, an increase from the 51% Biden had in the last WSJ poll. However, her support was still lower than the 73% of non-white voters who backed Biden in 2020, according to exit polls, when he narrowly won the presidency. Vice-President Harris got more support from under-30 voters than Biden did earlier this month. However, she still had less backing from young voters compared to Biden’s narrow win in 2020.

Harris has sparked a wave of excitement in her party. Now, about four out of five voters in both parties say they are enthusiastic about their candidate, which is a big change from the lack of enthusiasm among Democrats earlier this month. Democratic pollster Mike Bocian noted a significant shift in enthusiasm and said that, in early-July, only 37% of Biden voters were excited about him. Now, 81% of Harris’s voters are enthusiastic about her. That is an astounding change. Bocian conducted the survey with Republican pollster David Lee.

Harris has gained more support from Democrats than Biden did earlier this month, which is crucial because unifying the party is a candidate’s primary task. She has the backing of 92% of the voters who supported Biden in 2020, whereas Biden only retained 84% of those voters in the previous survey.

Lee, a pollster for the Grand Old Party (GOP)—a nickname for the Republican Party in the US—advised Harris and her party to be cautious about becoming too optimistic. He pointed out that, although Democrats and many in the media would highlight the closer ballot numbers as a shift in the race, it was important to remember that, in July 2020, The WSJ’s national polls showed Biden leading Trump by 9 points and, by August, Biden was ahead by 11 points. He added that Donald Trump was in a much better position now compared to the same time in the 2020 election.

Lee also noted that Trump’s job approval rating in that survey was the highest recorded so far in this election cycle. He said 51% of the voters approved of Trump’s performance as president, while 50% disapproved of Kamala Harris’s job as vice-president.

A national race that is basically tied suggests that Trump may still have an advantage in the Electoral College because of how the population is spread out. In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes, but he won over 300 of the 538 Electoral College votes.

Ohio Senator JD Vance, who is Trump’s new vice-presidential running mate, is seen favourably by 42% of the people and unfavourably by 44%.

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are working hard to shape the public’s view of the vice-president. The poll shows 46% of people have a favourable opinion of her, while 52% have an unfavourable opinion. This is her best result in the poll so far this election cycle.

Harris is facing major challenges. Her time as vice-president is linked to the Biden Administration’s record, which includes a messy situation at the southern border, increasing prices and ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

The poll indicates that Trump is seen as more capable than Harris in handling immigration, the economy, foreign relations and crime. However, Harris is preferred—51% to 33%—when it comes to dealing with abortion. On the question of “Who cares about people like you?” Trump and Harris are rated almost equally.

The poll found 48% of people think Trump, who is 78, is too old to be president, while only 2% say the same about 59-year-old Harris. Nearly half—46%—believe Harris has the right temperament to be president, compared to just 38% who say that about Trump.

The survey revealed that voters are still getting to know many of the potential vice-presidential candidates that Harris is considering. She will likely need to choose someone by August 7 to meet her party’s deadline for the virtual nomination process.

Among the potential candidates tested, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former Navy fighter pilot and astronaut, received the best ratings: 31% favourable and 19% unfavourable among all voters. The WSJ poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from July 23-25. It was conducted by Bocian from GBAO and Lee from Fabrizio Lee.

(The author of this article is a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. You can reach him at: girishlinganna@gmail.com)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA)

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