Trump’s Favorability and Approval Ratings Improve Dramatically; Harris’ Gain More Modestly
Donald Trump holds a slight lead over Kamala Harris nationally in the wake of Joe Biden’s exit from the race. The survey was conducted by BIG DATA POLL as part of the Public Polling Project for August 2024. The former president leads the current vice president by roughly 1 point across all ballot scenarios.
In the standard head-to-head, Trump leads Harris 46.7% to 45.5%, with 7.8% undecided. With leaners, his lead remains unchanged at 50.6% to 49.4%. The gender gap has returned largely fueled by black women. Trump leads with men 51.2% to 41.5% before leaners, while Harris leads with women 49.1% to 42.5%. White women overall still prefer Trump 50.2% to 43.9%, and white men back the former president 55.4% 37.7%.
“The race for the White House has clearly tightened from what was becoming a runaway landslide, but it’s important to consider the current political environment,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris said. “This month, Democrats were much more likely to participate in interviews than they have been in recent months and increased enthusiasm also manifested in a higher self-reported likelihood to vote.”
“The same was true of Republicans following the attempted assassination of the former president last month.”
Interestingly, there was little movement for Harris over Biden among black men. While 58.8% back the Democratic candidate, 32.8% continue to support the Republican nominee. That’s essentially unchanged from last month. Black women back Harris over Trump 78.4% to 12.%, though that’s a respectable share of the vote for the former president.
The appetite for a third party continues to collapse. A generic third party candidate draws just 4.4% without leaners, appearing to draw equal support from the two-party candidates. However, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to siphon slightly more votes from Trump in the 3-way generic scenario, and the full 6-way scenario that includes Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, independent candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Former President Trump’s image has been consistently improving over the last few years and for the first time since his inauguration in January 2017, both his favorability and approval ratings are majority positive. Overall, 52.2% approve of how he handled the job as president, to include 32.3% who strongly approve. That compares to 45.2% who disapprove, to include 36.5% who strongly disapprove. A slightly smaller majority (50.5%) now have a favorable view of Trump, while 48.0% view him unfavorably.
Vice President Harris’ image and approval ratings also improved, though more modestly. While 46.5% approve of the job she is doing as vice president, 49.2% disapprove to include 38.6% who strongly disapprove. Only 25.8% strongly approved, giving her an intensity index of -12.8. In August, 46.9% held a favorable view of Harris, and a 50.4% majority held an unfavorable view of the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Democrats hold a slight lead on the Generic Ballot for the U.S. House of Representatives, 42.7% to 42.4%. That marks a reversal from last month when Republicans held a near identical marginal lead over Democrats.
Methodology
The Public Polling Project conducted by BIG DATA POLL interviewed 3,097 registered voters nationwide from July 28 to July 30, 2024. Likely voters were screened by self-reported likelihood to vote and vote history. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and live-agent phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from the Aristotle National Voter File Database. Participants who opted for text-to-online were given 48 hours to complete the interview. Interview details can be reviewed by hovering and clicking on a locator pin. Results were weighted for gender, age, race, education, and region. The overall sampling error is ±1.8% at a 95% confidence interval. It is important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. All BIG DATA POLL publicly conducted surveys are crowdfunded via the Public Polling Project, supplemented if necessary by BIG DATA POLL and are NOT funded by or affiliated with any candidate, campaign, committee, or political entity. Full and interactive crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight.
Regional and Census Division Representations
- New England: 4.5%
- Middle Atlantic: 13.1%
- East North Central: 15.5%
- West North Central: 6.4%
- South Atlantic: 22.4%
- East South Central: 6.4%
- West South Central: 10.9%
- Mountain: 7.3%
- Pacific: 13.5%
