Effects of the Mid-Summer Switch-Up

This may be the most divisive election season ever, but there is at least one thing we can all agree on: this presidential race is unlike any other before it. In Trendency’s latest horse race numbers, Vice President Kamala Harris remains ahead of former President Donald Trump by an average of six (6) points at the national level. The latest trendlines include data from after the announcement of Tim Walz as Harris’s VP nomination, but we have still not seen the effect of that announcement reflected in our numbers. Of course, these are national numbers, so they mean very little for the six or so battleground states that the candidates actually need to win the Electoral College; however, looking at national numbers can still help us learn a little about the state of the race. After a wild couple of weeks, support for Harris has finally appeared to level out at 46 points out of 100, but this support is likely to fluctuate even more in the coming weeks following the announcement of Tim Walz as the VP candidate and the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Looking at demographic group data for only women, we see that Kamala Harris is popular nationally with a range of demographic groups. Harris does well among a diverse range of women: Democratic women, Black women, White women, women between the ages of 18 and 34, and women over the age of 65 all strongly support Harris over Trump. In our data, Republican women, Latinx/Hispanic women, and women between the ages of 35 and 44 are the only groups who currently lend more support for Trump than for Harris.

There’s a lot of data out there with data suggesting that Harris does well with Latinx/Hispanic voters and Millennials, so we know that these numbers may surprise some people. As a reminder, Trendency collects data a little differently in comparison to traditional polls; we gather data from the same panelists over several years, and we also ask panelists to allocate points to the candidates according to their passions on a scale of 0 to 100, rather than simply asking them to choose, meaning one panelist might allocate points to both Harris and Trump. That being said, our findings indicate that, among the people who have been answering surveys for years, women aged 35-44, Latinx/Hispanic women, and Republican women feel more passionately overall for Trump over Harris. There are still 90 +/- days before Election Day, so there’s still time for these numbers to change. Regardless, take that information as you will.

But this is where things get really interesting. When looking at the same demographic groups among only men, almost all demographic groups support Trump over Harris. The only exceptions are Democratic men, Black men, and men aged 35-44. This data also helps explain why the White Dudes for Harris movement may be so important in this election: Trump and Harris run neck-and-neck among White men. The Trendency data also confirms a national narrative that Black/African American men have been turning away from Democrats. For men of most demographic groups, this is a very close race.

Diving deeper into these groups, it appears that, while Trump was ahead of Biden back in mid-July, the Mid-Summer Switch-Up (did we just coin that?) led to decreasing support for Trump among Latinx/Hispanic women. Back in mid-July, Latinx/Hispanic women in our panel supported Trump with nearly 80 points out of 100. Now, with Harris in the race, support for Trump has decreased to just 51 points out of 100. This is evidence that Biden’s exit from the race has delivered the Democrats a major boost among Latinx/Hispanic women. As another reminder, this data is tracking opinions among the same group of panelists throughout the year. Two weeks after Biden dropped out, this is a completely different race for these voters, while White women and Black women have maintained stable support levels for Trump.

On the other hand, Latinx/Hispanic men have increased their support for Trump since Harris entered the race. Immediately following Harris’s entrance into the race, Black men sharply decreased their support levels for Trump, while White men only shifted their views toward Trump by 2-3 points on average.

Looking at the distribution of opinion for Black voters by gender, we see that Harris earns strong support from Black women, but she still has work to do to win over Black men. Around 59% of Black women allocate between 80-100 points for supporting Harris while just 4% of Black women allocate between 80-100 points for supporting Trump. Even Black women who do not strongly support Harris aren’t completely sold on Trump either: 21% of Black women allocate between 20 and 39 points to supporting the Vice President. However, Black men appear more divided in this election; only 31% of Black men strongly support Harris (80-100 points), while 26% of Black men strongly support Trump at the same level. While more Black men support Harris than Trump, the margin of this heightened support is noticeably small.

Turning back to the original group demographics charts, an interesting pattern emerged: voters under the age of 35 and those ages 65+ do not differ much in support for either candidate in the race. Since Biden dropped out of the race, men and women of both the oldest voting-age group and the youngest voting-age group increased their support for Harris to varying degrees. Women between the ages of 18 and 34 now support Harris the most, 6 points higher compared to women who are 65 and older. Younger men – despite increasing their overall support for Harris since Biden dropped out by over 10 points – support Harris the least, allocating 15 fewer points than men who are 65 years and older do.

Looking at the distribution of opinion for Trump, it appears that men who are 65+ are the most likely to vote for Trump – with 41% allocating 80-100 points for him – despite men voters aged 18-34 allocating the fewest points to Harris. Younger men allocate fewer points than older men to Harris, yet only 31% of younger men are highly committed to voting for Trump. In other words, it might be a fair assumption to say that men aged 18-34 feel more disillusioned this election than men aged 65+. Notably, more women aged 65+ intend to vote for Trump on Election Day compared to men under the age of 35, with 34% of women aged 65+ allocating 80-100 points for Trump. And worry not, “liberal snowflakes,” only 14% of women under the age of 35 are highly committed to voting for Trump.

To close out the discussion of demographic groups, we turn to the question of Kamala Harris’s strategy going forward. Does choosing Walz for VP signal her intention to energize and mobilize the progressive base? Does Tim Walz help her draw in Independents? What about Midwestern voters? Or is it a mix of all of the above? As shown in the previous charts, Harris earns more support from women than from men. Women who are younger, Black, and Democratic are especially likely to support Harris’s bid for the White House. Still, Harris has a chance to win over Independents, regardless of gender. After Biden dropped out, Independent women began supporting Harris in droves, increasing their average allocations for her from 25 points to 37 points out of 100. Meanwhile, Independent women have decreased their support for Trump from 41 points to 36 points. Independent men have also increased their support for Harris – from 31 points on the day Biden dropped out to 37 points today – but they still allocate an average of 45 points for supporting Trump, and this number has been stable since Biden’s exit. When considering all these numbers, and Walz’s favorable numbers and folksy approach, a play for Independents is realistic for Harris’s campaign.

We don’t have a crystal ball, and it’s important to note that the numbers above say little about the state-level campaigning that’s essential for both candidates to win the Electoral College in November. Still, our data confirms that “Joever” (the Gen Z term for Biden ultimately deciding to step aside) helped Democrats’ chances to stay in the White House, through increased support among almost all demographic groups at the national level. With three months left to go until Election Day, there is still time for these numbers to ebb and flow, but the good news is that Trendency’s tracking data will be able to capture the effects of any additional external events that may happen between now and then. Otherwise, on to November!