If the election were held today, would President Donald Trump or former Vice President Kamala Harris come out victorious?
A recent poll from data journalist G. Elliott Morris might spell bad news for Trump.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults, found that persistent support for Trump is “significantly lower” than persistent voting for Harris. The poll found that 86% of 2024 voters would vote for Trump again — compared to 92% of former voters for Harris. While the differences seem small, Morris maintained that the results would “absolutely add up” in a close election.
The poll revealed that Trump voters appear to be somewhat to significantly regretful of choosing him as their candidate for president. It showed that 5% of his 2024 base said they would vote for Harris, compared to 1% of Harris voters saying they would instead support Trump. Meanwhile, a number of people who did not vote during the election now say that they would participate — and they lean toward Harris by 14 points, in a 36% to 22% matchup against Trump.
More from Morris:
“I know this seems like a silly question (it will never be 2024 again and Trump is president), but the answer is potentially very revealing about both the state of public opinion on the Trump administration and the potential electoral consequences for the Republican Party in next year’s midterms.
Regret is also a powerful collective political-psychological tool. We would collectively feel a lot differently about our country, and about each other, if 100% of Trump voters are happy with their decision versus if only 50% are happy. And there is an accountability mechanism here too; Trump himself would also presumably feel a lot different if half of his voters were regretful, versus if he had a 100% approval rating. In the latter scenario, he is emboldened, the strong leader enacting a popular mandate for the country — and, importantly, his people. In the former, eh, maybe he doesn’t have as much leverage in Congress (or something else meaningful).”
Other polls, however, have shown that Trump voters still feel confident in their vote for the president. The Public Religion Institute found in April that 92% of Trump voters were satisfied with their vote. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll, also from April, asked voters how they feel about their presidential choice three months into Trump’s term, and only 2% of self-described Trump voters said they would have voted for someone else or no one at all. It was also found that Trump had a high approval rating among his base, which includes those who identify as Republicans (89%), conservatives (83%) and Trump voters (87%).
The Massachusetts Amherst poll, though, does not show who non-voters would support, which is critical when talking about a re-do, according to Morris. He said those who decided to sit the election out might now have “new information about the consequences of their decision,” and because of this, “many of them would behave differently.”
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