What the Polls Say About Biden Heir Apparent Kamala Harris
She’s basically as popular as the president but is likely to get a polling surge in the days just ahead.
After Joe Biden’s shocker of an announcement that he’s withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris as his successor, there will soon be plenty of fresh polling on the new likely matchup against Donald Trump. But according to recent polls, she begins with about the same level of popularity as Biden, not taking into account the surge she is likely to get from this latest boost and the cascade of endorsements that are sure to follow. As I noted in an earlier Poll Position item on July 9, Harris’s job-approval rating has recently converged with Biden’s; as of July 18, hers was at 38.6 percent in the FiveThirtyEight averages compared to Biden’s 38.5, while her disapproval number (50.4 percent) was a notably lower than Biden’s (56.2 percent). Similarly, her favorability ratio at RealClearPolitics (38.2–52.3 percent) is slightly better than Biden’s 39.1–56.6 percent).
In head-to-head trial heats against Trump, Harris has also been running at or slightly above Biden in most national surveys. RealClearPolitics shows Trump with a 1.9 percent margin (48.2–46.3 percent) over Harris, as compared to a 3.0 margin (47.7–44.7 percent) over Biden. There really isn’t enough polling of Harris in a race that include non-major-party candidates to indicate how she’s doing in that context.
Battleground state surveys of Harris versus Trump have been sporadic and mixed. InsiderAdvantage, a GOP-leaning poll outlet that had a shaky reputation in 2022, showed Harris trailing Trump (and Biden’s standing against Trump) substantially in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania on July 16. But at the same time New York Times–Siena showed Harris running ahead of Biden in Pennsylvania and Virginia while leading Trump by five points in the latter and trailing him by one point in the former.
There’s little or no horse-race polling pitting Harris directly against other potential Democratic nominees, but a very recent AP-NORC survey showed her being considered more likely to be a “good president” by Democrats than either Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer or California governor Gavin Newsom.
Going forward, pollsters may struggle to keep ahead of Harris endorsements by potential opponents for the nomination, and the veep will likely get a polling surge across the board until such time as the Trump campaign and Republicans generally begin devoting time and energy to attacks on her.