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Just before President Biden stepped aside as the Democratic Party’s nominee, a CBS News poll tested a hypothetical match-up between GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris trailed Trump by three points in the vote preferences of likely voters, including leaners (those who didn’t pick them first but leaned toward one of them) — that’s slightly narrower than the five-point margin by which Mr. Biden trailed the former president.
Hypotheticals are not real life, of course, and these numbers may shift as Harris garners more attention as the potential Democratic nominee. She has an opportunity to differentiate herself from the president as a candidate, and at the same time, she is likely to come under more intense scrutiny and criticism. Both mean that voters’ preferences might change as we move from the realm of the hypothetical into this new phase of the campaign. With that caveat, here’s a closer look at how Harris performed in a national match-up against Trump last week.
The Democratic base
CBS News‘ polling of the 2024 race suggests that Mr. Biden struggled with key parts of his 2020 coalition, including voters of color and younger voters less than enthusiastic about his candidacy. One of the reasons he trailed Trump fairly consistently was losing ground among these groups, relative to his 2020 support levels.
While Harris ran better than Mr. Biden among younger voters and voters of color, the differences were marginal — typically just a few percentage points. As with Mr. Biden, Harris’ support levels among Black voters, Hispanic voters, and women voters were lower than his 2020 performance with these groups.
Moreover, younger voters have been much less likely than older voters to say they’ll definitely vote this year. The story has been similar with Black voters relative to White voters. If Harris becomes the nominee, she would likely need to boost her support level or turnout (or both) among these important segments of the Democratic base.
Other voter groups
Biden won independents nationally in 2020, but Harris trailed Trump among them in our last poll (Biden did too).
In more recent elections, Democrats have made inroads with groups like White voters with college degrees. Harris had an edge over Trump with this group that was similar to Biden’s edge in 2020.
And while groups like men and seniors tend to vote Republican, Trump’s lead over Harris with these groups is wider than his 2020 margin, so Harris might look to make some inroads here.
What about the job Harris has done as Vice President?
Harris’ approval has largely tracked with President Biden’s, hovering around 40%, perhaps an indication that they were viewed as a “ticket” in many ways.
Earlier this month, 42% of registered voters nationwide approved of the job she was doing as vice president.
This analysis is based on two CBS News/YouGov surveys conducted with representative samples of registered voters nationwide. The first includes 2,826 registered voters interviewed between June 28-July 2, 2024, and the second includes 2,247 registered voters interviewed between July 16-18, 2024. Both samples were weighted by gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past vote.
Toplines, 6/28-7/2
Toplines 7/16-7/18
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