Harris Voters Less Confident She’ll Make Country Better Than Trump’s Voters

People leaning toward voting for Vice President Kamala Harris appear to have less confidence she will make the country better if elected president, compared to those leaning toward her rival Donald Trump.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll released on Monday asked 5,000 participants if each of the two would change the country for the better, the worse or not at all, if elected on November 5.
While 87 percent of those who definitely have voted, or will vote, for Democratic presidential nominee Harris believed she would bring positive change, only 43 percent of those saying they would probably vote for her felt the same.
By comparison, 97 percent of definite Trump voters felt the Republican presidential candidate would have a positive impact on the country, with 73 percent of those leaning toward him feeling similarly—a 30 percent difference to Harris’ numbers.
As for those who had concerns about one candidate or the other, 86 percent of Harris supporters believed Trump would make the country worse, while 90 percent of his supporters felt that way about the vice president.
“Kamala Harris proudly owns all of the Harris-Biden failures of the past four years, from historic inflation, to the open southern border, to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal,” RNC Spokesperson Anna Kelly told Newsweek Monday morning.
“President Trump will bring the change Americans desperately want when he brings down prices, ends the migrant crime wave, restores peace through strength, and Makes America Great Again.”
Newsweek also reached out to the Harris campaign for comment via email Monday morning.
The polling comes just over two weeks ahead of election day, with both campaigns out targeting swing states and undecided voters.
Both candidates are tied or nearly tied in seven battleground states, according to the Post’s survey, with another poll for USA Today/Suffolk University also putting Trump and Harris within one percent of the other. That poll showed Harris as the candidate most likely to bring change to the U.S.
“I am very much against Trump’s economic concepts of a plan which include tariffs, because I saw the devastation that did to the agricultural community in his first administration,” Erin Parker, a registered Republican in Oregon, told USA Today.
Another voter told the outlet she would be voting for Trump to “get back on the right track” when it came to affording groceries and gas.
The Post’s poll showed around six percent of swing-state voters were still highly skeptical of both candidates and were unlikely to vote for either. Many were younger, people of color and likely to identify as independent voters.
When it came to undecided voters, half of those interviewed in the spring had now made up their mind, leaving a portion still up for grabs.
“What we’ve had to do is a lot of conversations around trust-building, and that takes time,” Kelly Morales, co-director of left-leaning voter engagement group Siembra North Carolina, told The Associated Press.
“It’s really about helping folks see that not casting a vote is also a political decision.”
Groups like Morales’ have been knocking on doors speaking to Latino and Black voters who remain undecided and want to know more about Harris’ immigration policies and what Trump has been saying about the Latino community.
Polling for Newsweek showed the economy, abortion, immigration and healthcare remain the key issues for voters across the country as Nov. 5 draws closer and both candidates will be seeking to make their positions clear as they continue to travel to key states.
Trump will hold campaign events in North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada this week, before leaving swing states and holding a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
On Monday, Harris is due to hold a campaign event with former Republican Representative Liz Cheney in Pennsylvania, while her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, was due to appear on The View.
The Washington Post-Schar School poll was conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 15, 2024. 5,016 voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were asked 32 questions. The margin of error was 1.7 percentage points.