Americans give Harris an advantage over Trump on honesty and discipline, an AP-NORC poll finds
By: ABC News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A poll finds Vice President Kamala Harris is going into the last stretch of the presidential campaign as the candidate more likely to be perceived as honest, committed to democracy and disciplined
ByLINLEY SANDERS Associated Press and JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated PressAugust 14, 2024, 12:01 AM
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Kamala Harris has a perceived advantage over former President Donald Trump on several leadership qualities such as honesty, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds, although Americans are slightly more likely to trust Trump on the economy and immigration.
Nearly half of Americans say that "committed to democracy" and "disciplined" are attributes that better describe Harris. About 3 in 10 say these qualities better describe Trump.
About 4 in 10 say Harris is someone who "cares about people like you" while about 3 in 10 say that about Trump. About 4 in 10 say "honest" better describes Harris and 24% say that quality better describes Trump.
Both parties are racing to define Harris as she prepares to accept the Democratic nomination at the party's convention next week. The poll suggests she carries some of the same baggage that weighed down President Joe Biden before he ended his reelection bid but has advantages over Trump when they're compared to each other. And Democrats continue to be much happier about her candidacy than they were about Biden's.
Trump has spent the campaign championing himself as a strong leader who is capable of handling tough crises facing the country and suggesting that foreign leaders wouldn't respect Harris in the White House. But he doesn't have an advantage with Americans on that characteristic, according to the survey. Four in 10 U.S. adults see Trump as a strong leader, and roughly the same share say that about Harris. About 4 in 10 say Trump is capable of handling a crisis, and a similar share say Harris is better positioned to do so.
Americans are about evenly divided between who they think is more capable of winning in November — Trump or Harris. In July, before Biden dropped out of the race, only about 2 in 10 Americans thought he was more capable of winning, while about twice as many thought that about Trump.
"Trump had a better chance when Joe Biden was running," said Lisa Miller, a 42-year-old student in Elko, Nevada, and a Republican. "I think a lot of people who were insecure about Joe Biden are more secure with Kamala Harris' age and cognitive abilities."
Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy or immigration, but the difference is slight — 45% say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38% say that about Harris. The difference is similar in handling immigration. Independents are about twice as likely to trust Trump over Harris on economic issues, and they give him the advantage on immigration as well.
Howard Barnes, a 36-year-old artist in San Francisco, is a Republican who says he trusts Trump over Harris on the border.
"She doesn't really seem to be proactive about it or even interested in it," Barnes said.
Harris has more of an advantage over Trump when it comes to handling issues related to race and racial inequality, abortion policy, and health care. Roughly half of U.S. adults say Harris would do a better job than Trump handling each of those issues, compared with about 3 in 10 for Trump. Harris is especially strong among Democrats, independents and women on the issue of abortion policy.
Democrats and independents give her the edge on health care, as well as on issues of race and racial inequality. About two-thirds of Black adults say Harris is the candidate they trust more on that issue, as well as about half of Hispanic adults and white adults.
Harris' strengths also accentuate two areas where Republicans give Trump relatively low marks: abortion policy and issues related to race and racial inequality. Only about 6 in 10 Republicans trust Trump over Harris on these issues.
There are possible signs of trouble for Harris in the poll, though. Only about 6 in 10 Democrats trust her over Trump to do a better job handling the war in Gaza, her lowest rating within her party on the issues asked about. About one-quarter of Democrats say they trust neither Trump nor Harris on this topic.
About two-thirds of Democrats say "excited" describes either extremely well or very well how they would feel if Harris were to be elected.
The enthusiasm represents a sharp reversal from when Biden was the Democrats' candidate: an AP-NORC poll from March found that only 4 in 10 Democrats said "excited" would describe their feelings extremely or very well if he won another term. About 7 in 10 Democrats say "satisfied" would describe their emotions at least very well if Harris won. That's also a shift from March, when half of Democrats said this about Biden.
"There's definitely joy and there's definitely hope, and I feel like that's something that's been missing," said Meaghan Dunfee, a 33-year-old public-sector worker in Hamilton, New Jersey. "I don't think we've had that in a long time on the Democratic side."
About 2 in 10 independents say they would be either excited or satisfied by Harris being elected, an increase from their response to the Biden question in March. Roughly half of independents say excitement would describe their emotions at least "somewhat" well, up from about one-quarter in March. Similar shares of independents say they would be excited or satisfied about Trump being elected.
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Cooper reported from Phoenix.
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This falls into the dog bites man category.
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The delicious thing about this is there is nothing that can change it before election day.
Last Thursday, Donald Trump gave a classic Donald Trump press conference — by which we mean another nasty, self-indulgent, divisive and lie-filled show that was fine as entertainment but a disaster for anyone with aspirations to lead the most powerful nation on earth.
“Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me,” said the fibber. “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6,” he said, erasing and insulting the memories of five people who died on the day of the Capitol incursion and its aftermath. “The New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice,” he falsely said of criminal and civil charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney and state attorney general. We’ve come to expect all this and worse, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.
Remember the three seconds after the assassination attempt when it seemed Trump might have a second life as a more mature uniter?
The fact that the man can’t seem to open his mouth without deceiving and inflaming, though, doesn’t mean Democrats should ever stoop to his level. Generally Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are far more careful with their words. But there are a couple of habits at their rallies that they and their supporters should ditch.
One, stop it with the couch jokes. In his debut rally as Harris’ wingman, Walz challenged Sen. JD Vance to “get off the couch” and agree to debate, a sly reference to a viral lie. The lie started as a joke on the platform formerly known as Twitter and then spread, and spread, and spread.
Some who understandably revile Trump say they’ll stop spouting the lie when the other side stops saying that they won the 2020 election, a far more pernicious falsehood. But that’s not the way things work: Untruths poison public debate, and the fact that one person or party engages in them irresponsibly doesn’t give their rival license to do the same.
The second tendency we’re not especially fond of is the “Lock him up” chant that’s now a feature of some Harris-Walz rallies, a purposeful echo of the awful and anti-democratic “Lock her up” chants aimed at Hillary Clinton in 2016. These are funnier and not altogether horrible, since Trump — unlike Clinton, who was never even charged with a crime — has actually been convicted by a jury of his peers of crimes ( 34 felony counts ) that could carry jail time.
But in the American system, Trump gets to appeal, a right of which he’s availing himself. And even if he didn’t, it’s more than a little gross for people who are supposed to believe in impartial law and order, not to mention criminal justice reform, to salivate about putting a first time offender behind bars for nonviolent crimes. It’s especially unwelcome when this happens in the context of a political rally and the someone is the other candidate on the ballot.
Let us be very clear again: No matter what Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and Democrats do in this election, there’s no chance they’ll ever stoop to the level of Trump, who revels in falsehoods and poisons politics practically with just about every sentence he utters. But that’s not the standard — that’s the whole point. Decency is.
— The New York Daily News
Harris honest? You've got to be kidding me!
i assume you would concede she is more honest than trump.
Yes I would concede that, but only by a matter of degree. Besides, I'm talking about Harris not about Trump.
If Harris were honest, she wouldn't be hiding from the press and honest debate. If she were honest, she wouldn't have tried to cover up Biden's dementia.