July 24, 2024

We exist in the context of all in which we live and what came before us. But in what context do voters see Vice President Kamala Harris? Has the presumptive Democratic nominee already been defined, or has she fallen out of a coconut tree?

American voters have not yet made up their minds about Harris—giving her an opportunity to define herself more favorably than President Biden on central issues such as prices and immigration, Blueprint’s new polling shows. While political practitioners and commentators have plenty of takes about Harris, our survey suggests that voters do not, and their opinions of her can be molded in a way that their more ossified sentiments about Biden could not. The poll makes it clear that the general public does not give Harris credit for many of the Biden administration’s popular policies—but that she also won’t have to carry the president’s baggage on issues like inflation as she hits the stump ahead of November.    

More specifically, voters have a narrow understanding of what Harris is all about; they most commonly use words like “liberal” and “prosecutor” to describe her. They are also aware of her commitment to protecting abortion rights, and some associate her with her role in border security, usually uncharitably. Voters’ worries about Harris are mostly commonplace, bog-standard critiques the voting public hangs on most Democrats—being broadly too left-wing, along with specific concerns about her handling of immigration. Importantly, voters do not blame Harris for what they regard as Biden’s shortcomings on inflation, meaning she can run hard on prices-focused economic messaging (our top-testing message overall, and with nearly every subgroup), as well as reproductive rights messaging (the message that tested second-best overall), which works for her in a way it never did for Biden.

And crucially, while voters see Harris as slightly more liberal than Biden overall, their evaluations are different when it comes to key issues such as prices and immigration, where they find her to be closer to their views. Harris starts with a cleaner slate on these issues and can present general election voters—who lack strongly held views of her economic approach in particular—with an agenda that takes on companies for price gouging (leaning on her prosecutorial background), negotiates lower drug prices, embraces an all-of-the-above American energy strategy to bring down gas prices, and foregrounds fiscal responsibility as a counter-inflationary tactic. 

Overall, the new data shows that Harris is mostly unburdened by what has been; Biden’s weaknesses with voters do not stick to her, and most voters do not ascribe blame or credit to her for many of Biden’s accomplishments and positions, whether popular or not. In turn,  Harris has a golden opportunity to reintroduce herself to voters and make a first impression on many of them. To do so, she can highlight her record of taking on corporations in service of the middle class to bring down prices, call attention to her tough-on-crime credentials, and highlight the extreme, out-of-touch Project 2025 policies on reproductive rights, taxes, and healthcare pushed by Donald Trump and JD Vance.

The Best-Testing Harris Messages Focus on Populist Economics, Abortion, and Political Change

Blueprint tested 15 pro-Harris messages to determine which were the most persuasive to voters. A full list of the messages can be found in the appendix at the end of this press release. 

The most compelling message (selected by 61% of voters) is a pointed, populist economic argument focused on Harris as a champion of working families who supports reducing the federal deficit, an all-of-the-above approach to energy to lower gas prices, prosecuting price-gouging companies, and taking on Big Pharma by passing a law allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs. Not only is this message the most persuasive to voters overall, it is also the most compelling to independent voters (61%), voters across all age ranges (61% among voters aged 18-44, 62% among those aged 45-64 and those 65+), both men (61%) and women (61%), non-college voters (64%), and Republicans (63%).

Notably, the most appealing message with Black voters (selected by 64%) frames Harris as a change candidate, tying her to popular Biden policies while contrasting her with both Biden and Trump as someone who can get America out of its current period of political dysfunction and make government work for regular people again. For Latino voters, the most persuasive message (selected by 66%) is one that focuses on Harris’s record of fighting for working families as Vice President, emphasizing her role in passing the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

For Democrats, the most persuasive message (selected by 62%) is one that talks about Harris’s fight to protect a woman’s right to choose, contrasting her work to expand access to reproductive healthcare with Republicans’ plans for a federal abortion ban. This is also the second-most popular pro-Harris message overall, a notable change from the unevenness of abortion messaging in Biden testing.

Voters Don’t Blame or Credit Harris With Biden’s Accomplishments and Positions

For better or for worse, voters do not think Harris was responsible for most of Biden’s signature accomplishments during his term as president. Harris’s blank slate presents an opportunity for her to reintroduce herself to many voters, foregrounding popular initiatives she supported as Vice President while choosing not to highlight—or to actively distance herself from—unpopular Biden administration policies. For example, 68% of voters say Harris was not responsible for the 2021 withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. That figure includes even larger majorities of two key voting blocs—74% of independents and 80% of voters 65 years old and older. 

On the flip side, voters do not credit Harris with the Biden administration’s approval of more permits for domestic oil and gas drilling than any previous president, which is widely popular; 69% of voters—including 72% of independents, 57% of Democrats, and 65% of non-college voters—say she is not responsible for this policy. Similarly, a majority of voters, 68%, say Harris is not responsible for reducing the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion, including 55% of Democrats, 68% of independents, and 52% of Black voters. 65% say Harris is not responsible for sending $1,400 checks to Americans during the coronavirus pandemic (56% of Democrats, 68% of independents, and 57% of younger voters).

The Biden policy most associated with Harris is expanding access to medication abortion (50% of voters overall say she was responsible, but 56% of independents, 52% of Latino voters, and 51% of non-college-educated voters do not think she was). 

While Harris is not associated with many popular policies enacted during Biden’s presidency, she’s also not closely associated with one of Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities: inflation. Just 23% of voters associate Harris with inflation, whereas a significantly higher share associate her with electorally advantageous issues for Democrats, such as abortion and birth control (52%) and healthcare (31%). 

Voters See Harris as Liberal—but More Moderate Than Biden on Inflation and the Border

Voters view Harris as unambiguously liberal. When asked to place her on an ideological scale, 70% say she is liberal (including 46% who call her very liberal), and only 22% describe her as moderate. 

For context, 68% of voters in the same poll describe Biden as liberal (including 44% who call him very liberal), and 22% describe him as moderate. When asked about their own ideological leanings, 38% of voters identify as moderate, while 35% say they are conservative and 26% say they are liberal. 

When voters are asked which words they most associate with Harris, the most frequently selected option is “liberal,” picked by 43%, followed by “prosecutor” (30%) and “historic first” (27%). Other top positive Harris associations include “intelligent” (25%), “inspirational” (23%), and “capable” (22%). While most of the leading word associations with Harris are positive, voters do also choose words like “out of touch” (27%), “leftist” (22%),  or “extreme” (12%).

While overall impressions of Harris are as a liberal, when asked where they place Harris relative to themselves on specific issues, voters’ opinions are more nuanced—especially when compared to how voters see Biden on the same topics, which we asked about in our December poll. 

Just over a quarter of voters believe Biden is close to their views on immigration and the border, 40% say the same of Harris. And while only 33% of voters say Biden is close to their views on inflation, significantly more, 43%, say the same of Harris. Harris has an opportunity to reset on the issue of inflation, because voters do not blame her for inflation in the past.

In addition, when it comes to foreign policy and national security, voters see Harris as closer to their views than Biden; 41% of voters currently say Harris is close to their views on these issues, compared to the 32% of voters who considered Biden to be close to their views on foreign policy in the December poll.   

Harris has a unique opportunity to redefine her image on these issues while going on the offensive against Republicans on reproductive rights. On abortion, identical shares of voters (48%) said Biden and Harris were more liberal than they are—but 45% said Harris was close to their views, compared to 37% for Biden. Among Democrats, her views on the issue are very popular; 76% believe her views on abortion are close to theirs, while 17% say her views are more liberal and 7% say more conservative. More importantly, 45% of independents say Harris’s views on abortion are close to theirs,  while 46% say her views are more liberal and 10% say they’re more conservative. And 52% of non-voters (voters who in 2020 either didn’t vote or voted for someone other than Biden or Trump) say Harris’s abortion views are close to theirs; 37% say more liberal (27% far more, 10% somewhat more), and 12% say more conservative (8% somewhat more, 4% far more). 

Voters Associate Harris with Abortion Above Other Policy Areas

When asked which issues they most associate with Harris, the most frequently selected is abortion and birth control (52%), followed by crime (32%), LGBTQ issues (32%), healthcare (31%), and immigration and the border (29%). National security and foreign policy (12%), Israel and Palestine (12%), and oil and gas exploration (10%) are at the bottom of the pack. 

• The top five issues independent voters associate with Harris are abortion and birth control (47%), crime (32%), healthcare (28%), LGBTQ issues (27%), and immigration and the border (27%); the bottom five issues are college (8%), oil and gas exploration (10%), Israel and Palestine (11%), national security and foreign policy (11%), and K-12 education (11%).
• The top five issues younger voters (ages 18-44) associate with Harris are abortion and birth control (43%), crime (30%), healthcare (29%), LGBTQ issues (25%), and jobs and the economy (23%); the bottom five issues are national security and foreign policy (9%), oil and gas exploration (10%), college (10%), regulating businesses (11%), Israel and Palestine (12%), and election integrity (12%).
• The top five issues Black voters associate with Harris are abortion and birth control (52%), healthcare (46%), crime (39%), Social Security and Medicare (37%), and jobs and the economy (33%); the bottom five issues are none of these (9%), Israel and Palestine (11%), oil and gas exploration (14%), regulating businesses (18%), and national security and foreign policy (19%).
• The top five issues Latino voters associate with Harris are abortion and birth control (36%), jobs and the economy (32%), healthcare (27%), Social Security and Medicare (27%), and climate change and the environment (27%); the bottom five issues are Israel and Palestine (12%), none of these (13%), oil and gas exploration (13%), national security and foreign policy (13%), and regulating businesses (14%).

Harris Has a Trust Advantage Over Trump on Abortion, Social Security, Climate, and Some Economic Issues; She’s Behind on Immigration

When voters are asked whether they trust Harris or Trump more on key issues, Harris’s strongest issue is protecting reproductive rights, where voters trust her over Trump by a 12-point margin. 

Her next-best issues are protecting climate and the environment (+10), reducing racial tension (+6), improving healthcare (+6), expanding access to education (+6), and ensuring that companies don’t take advantage of customers (+6). Additionally, Harris leads Trump on protecting Social Security (+4) including a 6-point lead among independents. Social Security is also Trump’s weakest issue among non-college voters (just 52% trust him more). 

Harris, however, trails Trump on securing the border (-12), immigration (-6), lowering gas prices (-4), lowering interest rates (-2), having good policies on police and crime (-2), and reducing prices generally (by just -2, improving on a -4 disadvantage for Biden). 

Unlike Biden, who consistently trailed Trump on prices, Harris is tied on trust to bring down prices on goods and services specifically—and narrowly leads among independents on the issue, 53% to 47%. Trump’s remaining price advantages are tied to gas prices and interest rates specifically. Harris is also tied with Trump on voter trust to implement fair taxes and prevent war and conflict, mitigating Democratic perception problems in those areas.

Harris leads Trump by 6 points on ensuring companies don’t take advantage of customers, holding a 10-point advantage among independents. Voters also trust Harris more than Trump on lowering Medicare costs for seniors (including 54% to 46% among independents) and bringing down drug prices (55% to 45% among independents).

As we found in our April poll conducted in partnership with the Liberal Patriot, voters see immigration and border security as the most important issue facing the country; 38% named it as such. The next-most important issues were inflation (37%) and jobs and the economy (25%). 

In our polling conducted in April comparing Biden and Trump and tax policy, we found that voters trusted Biden less than Trump on lowering gas prices (by a margin of 7 points), keeping prices low (-5), lowering interest rates (-4), and lowering the prices of goods and services (-4). But notably, voters currently trust Harris substantially more on prices than they do Biden. Compared to Biden, Harris narrows the trust gap by 5 points on keeping prices low, by 4 points on lowering the price of goods and services, by 3 points on lowering gas prices, and by 2 points on lowering interest rates. Critically, Harris completely erases Trump’s trust advantage over Biden on keeping prices low and on lowering the price of goods and services.

ABOUT THE POLL

Blueprint surveyed an online sample of 1,537 voters on July 21 and July 22, weighted to education, gender, race, survey engagement, and 2020 election results. The survey was conducted in English, and its margin of error is ±2.9 percentage points. Full toplines and crosstabs can be found here.

INDEX – FULL MAXDIFF RESULTS

Pro-Harris Description MaxDiff: Below are pairs of descriptions of Vice President Harris. For each pair, select which description appeals to you the most. 

PRESS CONTACTS

Alyssa Cass
alyssa@slingshotstrat.com
347-992-5006

Evan Roth Smith
evan@slingshotstrat.com
646-240-0096

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