WASHINGTON - With just 90 days to go until the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris announced who would be running on the ticket with her.
Speculation about who Harris would choose as her running mate began within days of President Joe Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out of the race and instead endorsing his VP, and with that came a spate of polls considering who would best bolster Harris’ chances against former President Donald Trump.
Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to join the ticket. The governor was relatively unknown before Tuesday but his history, experience and record are now being scrutinized as voters and pollsters attempt to determine how this decision will impact the race.
Here’s a closer look at how voters are feeling amid this unusual and rapidly shifting race for the White House.
"Click states on this interactive map to create your own 2024 election forecast. Create a specific match-up by clicking the party and/or names near the electoral vote counter. Source: 270toWin."
Polling on Harris v. Trump
Generally, Harris has been rising in the polls since it was announced that she would be running and became the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee — although she’s only beating the former president out by a slight margin so far.
The smallest margins are seen in the latest CBS News and New York Times polls.
CBS shows Harris leading Trump by one point nationally. The poll was released Sunday and suggests that Harris’ boost is due in part to younger and Black voters, who appear to be more engaged and therefore more likely to vote, and by women who believe Harris will favor their interests.
The New York Times also puts Harris one point ahead of Trump, noting significant improvement from when her candidacy was hypothetical to when she secured enough delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee. Harris will officially be confirmed as the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which could bring a further jump for the vice president.
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The latest Morning Consult poll released Monday shows that Harris is steadily extending her lead. Their numbers show Harris leading Trump 48 percent to 44 percent with five percent of registered voters saying they would vote for "someone else" and four percent saying they don’t know. It’s the third consecutive week that the poll has shown Harris ahead of Trump.
According to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist National Poll, Harris leads Trump by three percentage points with 51 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 48 percent. Two percent of respondents remain undecided. The gap widens among independent voters with 53 percent saying they would vote for Harris and 44 percent saying they would vote for Trump. Among those independents, three percent are undecided.
Trump isn't down in all the polls though. He was leading Harris in the July Harvard CAPS-Harris poll by four points — 52 percent to 48 percent. A Wall Street Journal poll published shortly after Biden dropped out showed the former president was beating Harris 49 percent to 47 percent, though they noted that Harris' entry into the race effectively ended the solid lead Trump had over Biden amid the serious age concerns troubling voters.
In a poll generated by RealClearPolitics, which averages the latest data from 11 major polling sites, Harris leads Trump by a minor 0.5 percent margin. That small lead is exemplified by data that shows while she has an overall favorable outlook nationally, the two candidates face extremely tight races in battleground states including Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Polling on Gov. Tim Walz
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Kamala Harris and vice presidential running mate Tim Walz make first appearance together in Philly
Vice president Kamala Harris and her newly announced running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appeared in Philadelphia together Tuesday night.
It’s a bit early to see how adding Walz's name to the ticket is going to impact the race. The governor was little-known outside of his home state ahead of the announcement and voters are still familiarizing themselves with his record.
At a rally Tuesday, Harris spoke to Walz’s accolades, highlighting his progressive policies that led to legislation protecting women's reproductive rights, cutting taxes for the middle class, expanding paid leave for workers and establishing free school meal programs statewide.
But according to another NPR/PBS News/Marist National survey published Tuesday, nearly three-fourths of registered voters said they didn’t know enough about Walz to have either a favorable or unfavorable impression of him. Just 17 percent of those surveyed said they viewed Walz positively and 12 percent said they had an unfavorable view of him.
Overall, Walz favored lower than others who made the shortlist of contenders for the vice presidential nomination. Mark Kelly and Josh Shapiro were better known and more popular than Walz.
It’s yet to be seen how voters react to Walz but his folksy, Midwestern roots and past professions as both a high school teacher and football coach, and a military veteran are seen as overwhelmingly favorable traits. It could be the key to boosting Harris’ chances at the White House.
Walz is also an outspoken gun owner but believes in stricter regulation — a middle-of-the-road approach to a contentious issue that could attract moderate voters.
Support for 60-year-old Walz appears to be growing on social media, particularly with a viral clip of the governor starting the Harris campaign’s "weird" attack line against former President Donald Trump and JD Vance.
"These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room," Walz said in a TV interview last month.
The line took off among young voters — a key demographic Democrats continue to rely upon to boost poll numbers.
Polling on Sen. J.D. Vance
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JD Vance makes campaign stop in Wisconsin
JD Vance calls out VP Kamala Harris and media for not answering on the spot questions.
With Walz being named to Harris' ticket, there's already been talk about a debate between him and Trump's vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Overall, Vance is better known to Americans. He began to gain notoriety back in 2016 after his best-selling book, ‘Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis’ was published. It was then turned into a film that was released in November 2020 amid growing tension between conservative rural America and Democratic-leaning urban areas.
Compared with Walz, 34 percent of respondents in the NPR/PBS News/Marist National survey said they view Vance favorably, while 43 percent view him unfavorably. But negative views appear to be increasing.
In July, 28 percent said they viewed him favorably, compared to 31 percent who viewed him unfavorably. According to the survey, 23 percent of respondents are not sure how they view the Ohio senator.
Vance has recently faced backlash over resurfaced comments Vance made about Vice President Harris and other Democrats in a 2021 Fox News interview, saying they’re "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."
A recent YouGov/The Economist poll showed that among registered voters, men are more positive about Vance than women are with 45 percent of men viewing the VP favorably and 47 percent unfavorably. Meanwhile, 34 percent of women view Vance favorably and 48 percent unfavorably.
Additionally, the same poll revealed that only 30 percent of registered voters say Vance is qualified to serve as president while 45 percent say he is not qualified.