Just days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, her favorability ratings among Americans are soaring, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using the Ipsos Knowledge Panel, VP Harris’ favorability rating has jumped to 43%, with unfavorability at 42%. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll released a week ago, VP Harris’ favorability rating was 35% and her unfavorability rating was 46%.
After Biden announced he was ending his reelection campaign on July 20, most leading Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, endorsed Harris’ candidacy, and she began her campaign.
The vice president has the support of enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee if they all keep their pledges when it comes time to vote, and his approval rating has increased significantly among independents, a politically important group, ABC News reported.
Forty-four percent of independents have a favorable view of Harris, up from just 28% a week ago. Her disapproval rating among independents is 40%, down slightly from 47% last week.
There has been no discussion about another Democratic candidate to run against Harris, and the poll shows a majority of Americans (52%) say Harris should be the Democratic nominee, with that figure jumping to 86% among Democrats, 51% among independents and just 20% among Republicans.
Harris has an advantage over former President Donald Trump in terms of how excited Americans are about her as a candidate: 48% of Americans say they would be enthusiastic about her if she were the Democratic nominee, compared with fewer (39%) who would be enthusiastic about Trump if he were the Republican nominee.
Enthusiasm for Harris as the Democratic candidate is strongest among Democrats (88%) and Black Americans (70%). 49% of independents are enthusiastic about Harris, while only 31% of independents are enthusiastic about Trump.
President Trump’s favorability rating has fallen slightly from 40% measured the week after the assassination attempt and the Republican National Convention to 36% in the latest poll.
Trump’s favorability rating among independents also fell last week: 27% of independents have a favorable view of Trump, down from 35% the week before.
Political experts are also paying considerable attention to the potential swing group of “double haters” – Americans who have negative views of both Biden and Trump.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll last week found that 15% of Americans had an unfavorable view of both Trump and Biden.
Largely due to Harris’s increased favorability ratings, the percentage of Americans who dislike both her and Trump has now been cut in half to 7%.
Voter turnout will be crucial in this fall’s presidential election, but compared to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in early July, the percentage of Democrats who say they will definitely vote has increased from 70% to 76%, roughly equivalent to the 78% of Republicans who say they will definitely vote in the November election.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Harris and Democrats on the campaign trail this week, refusing to participate in the second presidential debate hosted by ABC News in September, and he has also slammed Biden for stopping his campaign bid.
Biden said he was “passing the baton” to Harris in a national address Wednesday night and vowed to focus on the final months of his presidency. His poor performances in the presidential debates and declining poll numbers have led many Democrats to call on him to end his campaign.
After suddenly announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race, Biden’s favorable rating, while still low, has improved from the previous week to 37%, up 5 points from the previous week, while his unfavorable rating has fallen 5 points from the previous week to 50%, the poll found.
President Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, had an unchanged favorability rating last week, but the percentage of Americans who view him unfavorably increased.
The Ohio senator’s favorability rating is at 24%, roughly the same as last week’s poll at 23%, but the percentage of people who view him unfavorably has increased from 31% last week to 39%, according to the poll.
When it comes to Democratic vice presidential candidates, the poll found that a majority of Americans either didn’t have an opinion or didn’t know enough about them to form an opinion on several names mentioned last week, including Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky.
Methodology – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted July 26-27, 2024 in English and Spanish using the probability-based Ipsos Knowledge Panel®. It was conducted with a national random sample of 1,200 U.S. adults, with oversamples of Black and Hispanic respondents weighted to their correct percentages in the general population. Results have a sampling error of 3.0 percentage points for the full sample, including design effects. Sampling error is not the only source of poll discrepancies. Partisan divisions are 31-29-29 percent for Democrats, Republicans and Independents, respectively. See the poll’s topline results and methodology details here.
ABC News’ Dan Markle and Ken Goldstein contributed to this report.
