What is Kamala Harris’ approval rating? Is it better or worse than Donald Trump’s?
President Joe Biden pulled a July surprise when he ended his 2024 campaign and endorsed his VP Kamala Harris changing the dynamics of the race.
The 2024 race for the White House underwent a dramatic change in late-July when President Joe Biden bowed to increasing pressure to exit the race. At the time, he was in a dead heat with his opponent, former President Donald Trump. While there had been concerns about Biden’s age his debate performance on 27 June exacerbated those and no matter what he did he couldn’t put them to rest.
When he did finally announce he would no longer seek reelection he threw his full support behind his Number Two, Vice President Kamala Harris, to be the standard-bearer for the Democrats in the 2024 presidential race. The party quickly rallied behind Harris, thus avoiding a messy internal contest, and her jumping to the top of the ticket has supercharged Democratic voters.
In just the first 24 hours after the switch-up, Harris’ campaign raised a record $81 million, from large and small donors. In the final days of July, she accumulated a total of $310 million, more than double that raised by the Trump campaign over the entire same month.
What is Kamala Harris’ approval rating? Is it better or worse than Donald Trump’s?
In general, Harris and Trump both had negative approval ratings before she became the Democrats’ standard-bearer, but the exact figures varied amongst pollsters. There had been worries about Harris’ chances against Trump prior to her jumping to the top of the Democratic ticket.
However, polls at the time showed her outperforming several other potential Biden replacements. Additionally, as a woman of color, it was expected that she would likely win the Black and Hispanic voters, two groups that Biden had lost support from since 2020.
While both candidates still have net negative approval ratings among voters, Harris and Trump have now seen their favorability numbers rise compared to data from May according a recent Pew Research poll. Kamala has seen a bigger bump in Americans who view her positively, going from 36% to 44% over the past three months. Those that have a negative view dropped from 60% to 52% of those who responded.
Trump on the other hand has gone from 39% of US adults having a positive view of him in May to 42% Pew found. His corresponding unfavorable rating decreased from 59% to 56% over the same three-month period. That puts Harris’ net negative at 8% while Trump has a 14-point net negative favorability.
Pew points out though that those gains in favorability for both candidates have come “almost entirely among those in their own party.” They both only have a positive favorability rating in the single digits among respondents from the opposing coalition.