Why JD Vance Has A Better Chance Of Being Popular With Voters Than Kamala Harris: Top Pollster

2 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," HarrisX Founder and CEO explained why Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) has room to grow with voters, while Vice President Kamala Harris's stature with voters is fairly set.

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Transcript

00:00When we're talking about vice presidential picks, obviously, I'm going to look at the

00:05counterpart here, and that is Kamala Harris, current vice president.

00:09She has had in this election cycle similar or lower approval ratings than Joe Biden.

00:16How does this dovetail these numbers when we're talking about J.D. Vance?

00:19How does this dovetail with voter sentiment toward Vice President Kamala Harris?

00:25Well, as we have shown in our polling consistently, Harris polls lower than Biden, both in terms

00:31of job approval and in terms of the horse race, especially in the head-to-head against

00:37Trump.

00:38However, she has near universal name identification, just like Biden and Trump have, by virtue

00:44of having been vice president for almost four years.

00:48J.D. Vance doesn't have that name ID.

00:51But as he shapes himself and as the Republican Party shapes him to be the vice presidential

00:57candidate and a potential heir apparent to Trump, there is a lot of opportunity to shape

01:03him in all the right way.

01:05Right now, voters are waiting to see, are waiting to hear about his biography, are waiting

01:11to hear about his positions, are waiting to hear about, you know, how J.D. Vance contributes

01:19to the ticket.

01:20And that's why they're largely split on questions like, does he care about people like me or

01:25not?

01:26Right?

01:27That in our poll, that specific question was 49 percent one way, 51 percent the other way,

01:33effectively a split.

01:34Of course, Republicans, they do think that he cares about people like them.

01:39And Trump voters say the same.

01:41Over 80 percent of Trump voters and over 80 percent of Republicans feel that way.

01:47But there's still room to grow, especially with independents.

01:51And that's where I would look for the numbers to start moving and the direction in which

01:56they move.

01:57Clearly, this poll indicates that J.D. Vance has a lot of room to grow.

02:02But any numbers in here, anything else stick out to you?

02:06Well, you know, to your question, do voters see him as similar to Trump or not, 78 percent

02:13of the electorate does view J.D. Vance as being similar to Trump or having the potential

02:19to be very similar to Trump.

02:21And that's also 74 percent of Republicans.

02:25So again, there is a template for J.D. Vance, which is to be that heir apparent to Trump,

02:33whether he follows that template or whether he plays more into the fact that he's also

02:38seen as being a moderate Republican more than he's seen as being, you know, very ensconced

02:46or historically ensconced with the MAGA movement.

02:50I think that that's that that will be that's an interesting tension and that will be something

02:54interesting to see.

02:56Right now, 54 percent of voters say that J.D. Vance holds mainstream views rather than more

03:04extreme, more far right views.

03:06And 78 percent of Republicans say the same, including also 60 percent of independents.

03:12So there's this interesting tension in the numbers between voters seeing him as an heir

03:19apparent to Trump and the closest thing to the person personification of the MAGA policies

03:25that Trump has within the Republican Party.

03:29At the same time, he's also seen as a mainstream politician.

03:33And it'll be interesting to see which way those numbers evolve.

Why JD Vance Has A Better Chance Of Being Popular With Voters Than Kamala Harris: Top Pollster

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