Buoyed by growing Democratic enthusiasm, Vice President Kamala Harris is now in a virtual tie with former President Donald Trump in the presidential race.

Among registered voters nationally, 46% say if the election were held today, they would support Harris, while 45% favor Trump and 7% back Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A month ago, Trump held a 4 percentage point lead over Joe Biden (44% vs. 40%), who withdrew from the presidential race on July 21.

Most of Harris’ gains have come at the expense of Kennedy, whose support has declined by roughly half in the past month, from 15% to 7%. Yet there are clear signs that Harris has energized Democratic voters, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted Aug. 5-11 among 9,201 U.S. adults, including 7,569 registered voters.

Harris’ strong support is on par with Trump’s. Among Harris’ supporters, 62% say they support her strongly, while 64% of Trump’s supporters back him strongly. Last month, just 43% of Biden supporters backed him strongly, compared with 63% of Trump supporters who supported the former president strongly.

Both candidates’ supporters are motivated to vote this fall. Following the stunning events of the past month – including Biden’s withdrawal and the assassination attempt against Trump – supporters of both candidates are increasingly motivated to cast ballots this fall:

• 70% of Harris supporters say they are “extremely motivated” to vote. That compares with 63% of Biden supporters who were extremely motivated in early July, when he was still in the race.
• 72% of Trump supporters say they are extremely motivated, up from 63% last month.

Jump to Chapter 1 for more on voters’ views of the presidential race.

Harris performs better than Biden did across most demographic groups. While many of the demographic patterns in vote preferences echo the Biden-Trump matchup from July, Harris’ gains have been particularly pronounced among some traditionally Democratic-leaning groups. Among voters under 50, Harris’ support is 9 percentage points higher than Biden’s was in July. And among Black, Asian and Hispanic voters, Harris’ support is up at least 10 points compared with Biden’s.

For more on voting preferences among demographic groups, visit the detailed tables.

Most Democrats are “happy” Harris is the Democratic candidate. Nearly nine-in-ten Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters (88%) say they are happy that Harris is the Democratic candidate for president in November. Close to half (48%) say they are very happy that Harris is the party’s candidate.

Other findings: Both Harris and Trump are viewed more favorably than a few months ago

Harris’ favorability rises sharply among Democrats

Both Harris and Trump are viewed more favorably than they were in May, with virtually all of the gains coming from members of their own party. Since then, Harris’ favorable rating has increased 8 points among all adults (from 36% to 44%), with an 18-point rise among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (from 65% to 83%).

Trump’s favorability is up more modestly overall, from 39% to 42%. About eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners (79%) now view him favorably, up 5 points since May.

‘Double negatives’ decline

In May, with Biden still in the race, a quarter of Americans had unfavorable opinions of both him and Trump. That was the highest share expressing negative views of both candidates in surveys dating back to the 1988 presidential election. Today, however, the share of these “double negatives” has fallen to 14%.

Jump to Chapter 2 for more on favorability ratings.

Nationally, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are essentially tied among registered voters in the current snapshot of the presidential race: 46% prefer Harris, 45% prefer Trump and 7% prefer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Following Biden’s exit from the race, Trump’s support among voters has remained largely steady (44% backed him in July against Biden, while 45% back him against Harris today). However, Harris’ support is 6 percentage points higher than Biden’s was in July. In addition to holding on to the support of those who backed Biden in July, Harris’ bump has largely come from those who had previously said they supported or leaned toward Kennedy.

Harris performs best among the same demographic groups as Biden. But this coalition of voters is now much more likely to say they strongly support her: In July, 43% of Biden’s supporters characterized their support as strong – today, 62% of Harris’ do.

Voting preferences among demographic groups

Overall, many of the same voting patterns that were evident in the Biden-Trump matchup from July continue to be seen today. Harris fares better than Trump among younger voters, Black voters, Asian voters and voters with college degrees. By comparison, the former president does better among older voters, White voters and voters without a college degree.

But Harris performs better than Biden across many of these groups – making the race tighter than it was just a few weeks ago.

Gender

• In July, women’s presidential preferences were split: 40% backed Biden, 40% preferred Trump and 17% favored Kennedy. With Harris at the top of the ticket, 49% of women voters now support her, while 42% favor Trump and 7% back Kennedy.
• Among men, Trump draws a similar level of support as he did in the race against Biden (49% today, compared with 48% in July). But the share of men who now say they support Harris has grown (to 44% today, up from 38% last month). As a result, Trump’s 10-point lead among men has narrowed to a 5-point lead today.

Race and ethnicity

Harris has gained substantial ground over Biden’s position in July among Black, Hispanic and Asian voters. Most of this movement is attributable to declining shares of support for Kennedy. Trump performs similarly among these groups as he did in July.

• 77% of Black voters support or lean toward Harris. This compares with 64% of Black voters who said they backed Biden a few weeks ago. Trump’s support is unchanged (13% then vs. 13% today). And while 21% of Black voters supported Kennedy in July, this has dropped to 7% in the latest survey.
• Hispanic voters now favor Harris over Trump by a 17-point margin (52% to 35%). In July, Biden and Trump were tied among Hispanic voters with 36% each.
• By about two-to-one, Asian voters support Harris (62%) over Trump (28%). Trump’s support among this group is essentially unchanged since July, but the share of Asian voters backing Harris is 15 points higher than the share who backed Biden in July.
• On balance, White voters continue to back Trump (52% Trump, 41% Harris), though that margin is somewhat narrower than it was in the July matchup against Biden (50% Trump, 36% Biden).

Age

While the age patterns present in the Harris-Trump matchup remain broadly the same as those in the Biden-Trump matchup in July, Harris performs better across age groups than Biden did last month. That improvement is somewhat more pronounced among voters under 50 than among older voters.

• Today, 57% of voters under 30 say they support Harris, while 29% support Trump and 12% prefer Kennedy. In July, 48% of these voters said they backed Biden. Trump’s support among this group is essentially unchanged. And 12% now back Kennedy, down from 22% in July.
• Voters ages 30 to 49 are now about evenly split (45% Harris, 43% Trump). This is a shift from a narrow Trump lead among this group in July.
• Voters ages 50 and older continue to tilt toward Trump (50% Trump vs. 44% Harris).

How have voters shifted their preferences since July?

With Harris now at the top of the Democratic ticket, the race has become tighter.

Much of this is the result of shifting preferences among registered voters who, in July, said they favored Kennedy over Trump or Biden.

Among the same group of voters surveyed in July and early August, 97% of those who backed Biden a few weeks ago say they support or lean toward Harris today. Similarly, Trump holds on to 95% of those who supported him a few weeks ago.

But there has been far more movement among voters who previously expressed support for Kennedy. While Kennedy holds on to 39% of those who backed him in July, the majority of these supporters now prefer one of the two major party candidates: By about two-to-one, those voters are more likely to have moved to Harris (39%) than Trump (20%). This pattern is evident across most voting subgroups.

Harris’ supporters back her more strongly than Biden’s did last month

In July, Trump’s voters were far more likely than Biden’s voters to characterize their support for their candidate as “strong” (63% vs. 43%). But that gap is no longer present in the Harris-Trump matchup.

Today, 62% of Harris voters say they strongly support her, while about a third (32%) say they moderately support her. Trump’s voters are just about as likely to say they strongly back him today as they were in July (64% today, 63% then).

Kennedy’s voters make up a smaller share of voters today than a month ago – and just 18% of his voters say they strongly support him, similar to the 15% who said the same in July.

Across demographic groups, strong support for Harris is higher than it was for Biden

Gender

Among women voters who supported Biden in July, 45% said they did so strongly. That has grown to 65% today among women voters who support Harris.

Increased intensity of support is similar among men voters who back the Democratic candidate: In July, 42% of men voters who supported Biden said they did so strongly. This has since grown to 59% of Harris’ voters who are men.

Race and ethnicity

Across racial and ethnic groups, Harris’ supporters are more likely than Biden’s were to say they back their candidates strongly.

Among White voters, 43% who supported Biden in July did so strongly. Today, Harris’ strong support among White voters sits at 64%.

A near identical share of Harris’ Black supporters (65%) characterize their support for her as strong today. This is up from the 52% of Biden’s Black supporters who strongly backed him in July.

Among Harris’ Hispanic supporters, 56% support her strongly, while 45% of Asian Harris voters feel the same. Strong support for Harris among these voters is also higher than it was for Biden in July.

Age

Across all age groups, Harris’ strength of support is higher than Biden’s was. But the shift from Biden is less pronounced among older Democratic supporters than among younger groups.

Still, older Harris voters are more likely than younger Harris voters to describe their support as strong. For instance, 51% of Harris’ voters under 50 say they strongly support her, while 71% of Harris supporters ages 50 and older characterize their support as strong.

Large gap in motivation to vote emerges between the candidates’ younger supporters

Today, about seven-in-ten of both Trump supporters (72%) and Harris supporters (70%) say they are extremely motivated to vote.

Motivation to vote is higher in both the Democratic and Republican coalitions than it was in July.

These shifts have occurred across groups but are more pronounced among younger voters.

Today, half of voters under 30 say they are extremely motivated to vote, up 16 points since July. Motivation is up 11 points among voters ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64, and up 6 points among those ages 65 and older.

Among the youngest voters, the increased motivation to vote is nearly all driven by shifts among Democratic supporters.

• In July, 38% of 18- to 29-year-old Trump voters said they were extremely motivated to vote. Today, a similar share of his voters (42%) report that level of motivation.
• But 18- to 29-year-old Harris supporters are far more likely to say they are extremely motivated to vote than Biden’s supporters in this age group were about a month ago. Today, 61% of Harris’ voters under 30 say this. In July, 42% of voters under 30 who supported Biden said they were extremely motivated to vote.

Kamala Harris is viewed much more favorably today than in May, before Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race and Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Overall, 44% of U.S. adults have a favorable view of Harris, 8 percentage points higher than in May.  

Donald Trump’s favorability rating also has improved since May, though the increase has been more modest than Harris’.

Currently, 42% have a positive opinion of the former president, up from 39% three months ago.

The improvement in Trump’s and Harris’ favorability ratings has occurred almost entirely among those in their own party. For both candidates, positive ratings among the opposing coalition remain in the single digits.

Harris and Trump have gained ground with their own coalitions

Kamala Harris

About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (83%) view Harris favorably, while just 15% have an unfavorable opinion.

That represents a notable improvement since May, when 65% of Democrats had a positive opinion of the vice president and 32% viewed her negatively.

Views of Harris among Republicans and GOP leaners remain overwhelmingly negative. Just 9% view her favorably, while 89% have an unfavorable impression.

Donald Trump

Trump’s favorable ratings among Republicans have increased 5 points since May (from 74% to 79%). Trump’s current rating among Republicans is at its highest point in at least two years.

Like Harris, Trump’s rating with the opposing party continues to be near-universally negative. About nine-in-ten Democrats (92%) have an unfavorable opinion of the former president.

Share of ‘double negatives’ drops significantly with change in presidential candidates

In May of this year, a quarter of Americans held unfavorable views of Trump and Biden – the highest share expressing negative views of both major party candidates in more than three decades.

However, since Harris replaced Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee – and with the improvement in both Harris’ and Trump’s favorable ratings – the share of these “double negatives” has declined substantially.

Today, 14% of Americans, including comparable shares of Republicans (14%) and Democrats (12%), hold negative views of both Trump and Harris.

Views of Biden have changed little since his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race

Joe Biden remains broadly unpopular with the public: 62% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the president, while 37% view him favorably. Biden’s ratings have changed little over the past year.

Biden’s favorable rating among Democrats has edged up since May, from 67% to 70%. His rating among Republicans remains overwhelmingly negative (93% unfavorable) and is essentially unchanged.

This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals:

Research team

Carroll Doherty, Director, Political Research
Jocelyn Kiley, Senior Associate Director, Political Research
Hannah Hartig, Senior Researcher
Baxter Oliphant, Senior Researcher
Gabe Borelli, Research Associate
Andrew Daniller, Research Associate
Andy Cerda, Research Analyst
Joseph Copeland, Research Analyst
Ted Van Green, Research Analyst
Shanay Gracia, Research Assistant

Communications and editorial

Nida Asheer, Senior Communications Manager
Talia Price, Communications Associate
Anna Jackson, Editorial Assistant

Graphic design and web publishing

Alissa Scheller, Senior Information Graphics Designer
Reem Nadeem, Digital Producer

Methodology

Andrew Mercer, Senior Research Methodologist
Dorene Asare-Marfo, Senior Panel Manager
Dana Popky, Associate Panel Manager
Arnold Lau, Research Methodologist

The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Overview

Data in this report comes from Wave 151 of the American Trends Panel (ATP), Pew Research Center’s nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults. The survey was conducted from Aug. 5 to Aug. 11, 2024. A total of 9,201 panelists responded out of 10,079 who were sampled, for a survey-level response rate of 91%.

The cumulative response rate accounting for nonresponse to the recruitment surveys and attrition is 3%. The break-off rate among panelists who logged on to the survey and completed at least one item is 1%. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 9,201 respondents is plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.

SSRS conducted the survey for Pew Research Center via online (n=8,935) and live telephone (n=266) interviewing. Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

To learn more about the ATP, read “About the American Trends Panel.”

Longitudinal data

A portion of this report utilizes data from a survey that was conducted July 1-7, 2024. To analyze how vote preference may have shifted between July and August, the 8,434 panelists who responded to both surveys were combined and weighted according to the procedures outlined below.

Panel recruitment

Since 2018, the ATP has used address-based sampling (ABS) for recruitment. A study cover letter and a pre-incentive are mailed to a stratified, random sample of households selected from the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence File. This Postal Service file has been estimated to cover 90% to 98% of the population.¹ Within each sampled household, the adult with the next birthday is selected to participate. Other details of the ABS recruitment protocol have changed over time but are available upon request.² Prior to 2018, the ATP was recruited using landline and cellphone random-digit-dial surveys administered in English and Spanish.

A national sample of U.S. adults has been recruited to the ATP approximately once per year since 2014. In some years, the recruitment has included additional efforts (known as an “oversample”) to improve the accuracy of data for underrepresented groups. For example, Hispanic adults, Black adults and Asian adults were oversampled in 2019, 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Sample design

The overall target population for this survey was noninstitutionalized persons ages 18 and older living in the United States. All active panel members were invited to participate in this wave.

Questionnaire development and testing

The questionnaire was developed by Pew Research Center in consultation with SSRS. The web program used for online respondents was rigorously tested on both PC and mobile devices by the SSRS project team and Pew Research Center researchers. The SSRS project team also populated test data that was analyzed in SPSS to ensure the logic and randomizations were working as intended before launching the survey.

Incentives

All respondents were offered a post-paid incentive for their participation. Respondents could choose to receive the post-paid incentive in the form of a check or gift code to Amazon.com.  Incentive amounts ranged from $5 to $20 depending on whether the respondent belongs to a part of the population that is harder or easier to reach. Differential incentive amounts were designed to increase panel survey participation among groups that traditionally have low survey response propensities.

Data collection protocol

The data collection field period for this survey was Aug. 5 to Aug. 11, 2024. Surveys were conducted via self-administered web survey or by live telephone interviewing.

For panelists who take surveys online:³ Postcard notifications were mailed to a subset on Aug. 5.⁴ Survey invitations were sent out in two separate launches: soft launch and full launch. Sixty panelists were included in the soft launch, which began with an initial invitation sent on Aug. 5. All remaining English- and Spanish-speaking sampled online panelists were included in the full launch and were sent an invitation on Aug. 6.

Panelists participating online were sent an email invitation and up to two email reminders if they did not respond to the survey. ATP panelists who consented to SMS messages were sent an SMS invitation with a link to the survey and up to two SMS reminders.

For panelists who take surveys over the phone with a live interviewer: Prenotification postcards were mailed on July 31, and reminder postcards were mailed on Aug. 5. The CATI soft launch took place on Aug. 5 and involved dialing until a total of three interviews had been completed. CATI panelists receive up to six calls from trained SSRS interviewers. All remaining English- and Spanish-speaking sampled CATI panelist numbers were dialed throughout the remaining field period.

Data quality checks

To ensure high-quality data, Center researchers performed data quality checks to identify any respondents showing patterns of satisficing. This includes checking for whether respondents left questions blank at very high rates or always selected the first or last answer presented. As a result of this checking, 4 ATP respondents were removed from the survey dataset prior to weighting and analysis.

Weighting

The ATP data is weighted in a process that accounts for multiple stages of sampling and nonresponse that occur at different points in the panel survey process. First, each panelist begins with a base weight that reflects their probability of recruitment into the panel. These weights are then calibrated to align with the population benchmarks in the accompanying table to correct for nonresponse to recruitment surveys and panel attrition. If only a subsample of panelists was invited to participate in the wave, this weight is adjusted to account for any differential probabilities of selection.

Among the panelists who completed the survey, this weight is then calibrated again to align with the population benchmarks identified in the accompanying table. The weight is then trimmed at approximately the 1st and 99th percentiles to reduce the loss in precision stemming from variance in the weights. Sampling errors and tests of statistical significance take into account the effect of weighting.

CORRECTION (8/23/24): A previous version of this methodology incorrectly stated that party affiliation x Voter registration was weighted to the 2022 CPS Voting and Registration Supplement. It was actually weighted to the 2020 CPS Voting and Registration Supplement. This typographical error did not affect the report’s substantive findings.

The following table shows the unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey.

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Dispositions and response rates

Validated voters

Members of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel were matched to public voting records from national commercial voter files in an attempt to find records for voting in the 2016 and 2020 general elections. Validated voters are citizens who told us in a post-election survey that they voted in a given election and have a record for voting in that election in a commercial voter file. Nonvoters are citizens who were not found to have a record of voting in any of the voter files or told us they did not vote.

In an effort to accurately locate official voting records, up to three commercial voter files were searched for each panelist. The number of commercial files consulted varied by when a panelist was recruited to the ATP. Three files were used for panelists recruited in 2022 or before, while one file was used for panelists recruited in 2023. Altogether, files from four different vendors were used, including two that serve conservative and Republican organizations and campaigns, one that serves progressive and Democratic organizations and campaigns, and one that is nonpartisan.

Additional details and caveats about the validation of votes in 2016 and 2020 can be found in these methodological reports:

• An examination of the 2016 electorate, based on validated voters
• Validated voters methodology

© Pew Research Center 2024