Key results:
Perceived Capabilities:
- 48% of respondents said that “honest” describes Harris well compared to 38% for Trump.
- 51% of respondents indicate that Harris also had advantages on the description of “moral” versus 36% for Trump and “knowledgeable” with 54% for Harris versus 47% for Trump.
- 48% of respondents said that the description “really cares about people like you” describes Harris well versus 42% for Trump.
- 52% of respondents said that the description “providing strong leadership” describes Trump well versus 48% for Harris.
Emotional Response:
Asked whether something about the candidate or something they have done elicited certain emotions, respondents expressed more negative emotional reactions to Trump whereas Harris was slightly more likely to generate positive emotional reactions.
- 44% of respondents indicated that they felt angry when reacting to Trump versus 34% for Harris.
- 46% of respondents indicated that they felt disgusted when reacting to Trump versus 38% for Harris.
- 37% of respondents indicated that they felt afraid when thinking of Trump compared to 30% for Harris.
- 41% of respondents indicated that Harris generated feelings of hope versus 38% for Trump.
- 37% of respondents indicated they felt pride when thinking about Harris compared to 33% for Trump.
Issue Confidence:
When asked about various issues, people diverged in their assessment of each candidate’s governing abilities, with the following percentages saying they were very or somewhat confident in the candidate’s ability to handle each issue. Despite Trump's personal disadvantages, voters said they were more confident in his ability to handle several key issues:
- Economy: 52% of respondents are confident in Trump’s ability to handle the economy, versus 46% for Harris.
- Immigration: 52% of respondents expressed confidence that Trump could handle immigration, while just 42% said the same of Harris.
- Israel-Hamas War: 47% of respondents are confident in Trump’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, versus 36% for Harris.
- War in Ukraine: 47% of respondents are confident in Trump’s handling of the war in Ukraine, compared to 43% for Harris.
- Abortion: 55% of respondents were more confident in Harris' ability to handle abortion versus 39% for Trump.
- Healthcare: 49% of respondents were more confident in Harris' ability to handle healthcare versus 41% for Trump.
- Protecting Democracy: 51% of respondents were more confident in Harris' ability to protect democracy versus 46% for Trump.
Additional Findings:
- The poll demonstrated a stronger ground game for the Democratic party. Thirty percent of respondents reported being contacted by one of the candidates or parties. Among those who were contacted, 73% report being contacted by the Democratic party while 51% report being contacted by the Republican Party. Democrats are also more successful in attempting to turn out their own supporters, with 87% of Democratic respondents saying that they had been contacted by their party, whereas 75% of Republicans saying that they had been contacted by their party.
- 93% of Democrats said that they were somewhat or very confident that ballots would be counted fairly as opposed to 51% of Republicans
- Additional findings show that Republicans are also less trusting in their state and local elected officials. 57% of Republicans compared with 82% of Democrats say they trust their state elected officials (for local elected officials the difference is 67% to 86%).
- The poll also found that those who live in seven key battleground states are less trusting of their state elected officials, though there is no difference in their views on local elected officials, with the effect being driven mainly by Republicans' even lower trust of state elected officials when they live in swing states.
With the candidates possessing strength on different dimensions, these findings suggest that the outcome of the election may turn on which set of considerations voters prioritize -- the candidates' personal attributes or particular issues.
Explore the Data
Note: For traits, bars represent the percentage who said the trait describes the candidate "quite well" or "extremely well." For issues, the bars represent the percentage who said they were "extremely confident" or "somewhat confident" in the candidate's ability to handle the issue. N=1,795
About the Poll
The GW Politics Poll is managed jointly by GW's School of Media and Public Affairs, Graduate School of Political Management and Department of Political Science. The poll was conducted by YouGov. It was in the field October 10-24, 2024 and interviewed 1795 respondents. The results are weighted on PID, 2020 presidential vote, gender, age, race and education. It was the third wave of a panel survey which is interviewing the same respondents multiple times over the presidential campaign. The first two waves were fielded in June and September. The margin of error for this October wave full sample is +/- 2%.
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