August 14, 2024
As Kamala Harris secures the Democratic nomination for president, people are more likely to feel Harris is honest, committed to democracy, disciplined, and cares about people like them, compared with Donald Trump. About equal shares describe Trump and Harris as capable of winning the election in November, a strong leader, and capable of handling a crisis. Forty-two percent think Harris has the right vision of the country and 35% say Trump has the right vision.
Harris is faring better than Joe Biden did on a similar question in an AP-NORC poll conducted after Biden’s poor performance in the debate, but before he withdrew from the campaign. At that time, 42% of adults said Trump can win the 2024 election compared with 18% who said Biden. Trump was also more likely to be viewed as capable of handling a crisis, at the time by 38% of the public, compared with 28% who said Biden. The public was evenly divided about which candidate had the better vision for the country, with 35% who said Biden and 34% who said Trump. About 40% in both polls view Biden and Harris as honest.
When it comes to comparing the candidates on the issues, the public is more likely to trust Trump to do a better job handling the economy and immigration. Harris is more trusted to handle racial inequality, abortion, and heath care. The public is closely divided on which candidate would do a better job of handling crime or the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
In March, when Trump and Biden were their party’s presumptive nominees, 54% of Republicans said they would be excited if Trump is re-elected in November and 40% of Democrats said they would be excited with another Biden administration. At the time, Democrats were more likely to be fearful or angry about the prospect of a Trump re-election than Republicans were about a Biden re-election.
In the latest poll, a similar share of Republicans remain excited about a Trump victory in the 2024 general election. But Harris is seeing a roughly 20 percentage point boost in excitement among Democrats. Two-thirds of Democrats are excited about a Harris victory, compared with the 40% in March who felt that way about Biden prevailing. And Democrats remain more fearful or angry thinking about another Trump administration than Republicans are about a Harris victory.
Forty-seven percent of Black adults report they would be excited if Harris became president compared with 31% of white adults or 30% of Hispanic adults.
The nationwide poll was conducted August 8-12, 2024 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,164 adults. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.8 percentage points.
- Suggested Citation: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (August 2024). “Harris is building excitement amongst Democrats”
