Americans generally projected Kamala Harris to be the winner in last week’s widely watched presidential debate, but neither she nor Donald Trump saw any notable change in their beliefs about the issues, their ratings of the candidates’ personal qualities, or their preference to vote for them in 2024.
Even Taylor Swift seems to have little impact: In the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, only 6% said the pop star and singer-songwriter’s support for Harris would make them more likely to vote for her; 13% said it would make them less likely to support her, and 81% said it would make no difference. The overwhelming majority of negative respondents were Trump supporters, according to the poll.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans said Harris won the debate, a reversal of a June debate in which Biden and Trump were expected to win 66% to 28%. Biden’s performance intensified doubts about his cognitive abilities and hastened his withdrawal from the race.
The poll of 3,276 adults conducted by Langer Research Associates for ABC and conducted by Ipsos on-site found that Harris’ personal appeal has been somewhat strengthened: 37 percent said the debate made their favorable opinion of her more favorable, while 23 percent said it made it less favorable. Trump saw no such benefit: By a two-to-one margin, more people said the debate made them more favorable.
See the PDF for full results.
Harris’ gains came almost exclusively from her base, which may have helped boost voter turnout: 69% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the debates made them view Harris more favorably. Only half as many Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 34%, said the debates made them view Trump more favorably. One factor may be that, as a primary candidate, Harris has not received much public attention thus far.
The poll also showed a slight decline in the share of Trump’s supporters who strongly approve of him, down to 56% from 60% at the end of August. 62% of Harris’ supporters now say they strongly approve of her, marking the first meaningful difference between the two candidates in terms of strong approval.
But Trump has an edge on another measure: 42% see him as too conservative, while 47% see Harris, one of the debate’s subjects, as too liberal.
setting
Voter preferences haven’t changed much: The poll finds Harris vs. Trump 51-46% among all adults, 51-47% among registered voters and 52-46% among likely voters — all within 1% of their pre-debate levels in the ABC/Ipsos poll.
Including third party or independent candidates Chase Oliver, Jill Stein, and Cornel West produced essentially the same results, each garnering a maximum of 1% support. Whether these candidates will appear on the ballot state by state is still being determined. ABC News currently estimates that Oliver will appear on the ballot in about 36 states, Stein in about 27, and West in about 15.
It’s important to note that this poll is a measure of national preferences to better understand how people across the country are choosing in the presidential election — it doesn’t assess the state-level contest that determines the Electoral College winner.
That voters’ preferences did not change despite Harris’ 22-point victory in the debates indicates a highly polarized electorate: Nearly everyone has a preference for either Harris or Trump, and among those who do, very few would consider the other. This is especially true among voters, who only 3% could be persuaded to switch.
Other results revealed deep ideological divisions: 73% of Trump supporters say they have supported Trump all year. The remaining 17% were undecided at one point but settled on Trump. Just 9% moved from other candidates (mostly other Republicans or former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) to Trump. Just 2% of Trump supporters had previously supported Harris or Biden but then moved to Trump.
The story is similar for Harris: Two-thirds of her supporters say they’ve supported her since she entered the race. A quarter were undecided at one point. Just 2% of Harris supporters have switched from Trump to her.
In a close race, floating voters can be important because everyone counts, but these results suggest that the biggest payoff for both Trump and Harris would be to boost turnout among their existing bases.
group
Harris leads Trump by nine points among women, is roughly even among men and has a slight nine-point lead among 18-29 year-olds, all of which comes from support from women in that age group. Her support is rising among younger voters, who are more likely to vote.
Younger women are important to Harris, but Swift’s endorsement hasn’t had a positive effect on them either: Eight percent of women under 30 said her endorsement would make them more likely to support Harris, while 13% said it would make them less likely. A majority, 78%, said it would make no difference.
Her approval rating among high-profile suburban women is roughly the same as her approval rating among women overall, and, even more notable, she has a 12-point advantage among independents, who are often swing voters in presidential elections.
Meanwhile, Trump leads white evangelical Protestants by a wide margin of 79-18%, and core Republican groups appear unfazed by his multi-layered stance on abortion. Trump’s approval ratings are roughly in line with his past record, with white evangelical Protestants running 74-25% in 2020 and 81-16% in 2016.
Among other groups, Trump has a 12-point lead among whites, and that grows to 28 points among those without a four-year college degree, a key pillar of his support. Despite criticism that he disrespects the military, he leads by 29 points among veterans, 63 to 34 percent.
Voters
Many of these results, though not all, remain stable when moving from the general public (relevant since there is still time to register) to registered voters to likely voters, with some notable exceptions.
Harris went from +9 points among all adults ages 18-29 to +19 points among likely voters, fueled by young women who are the linchpin of her campaign: She went from +23 points among all women under 30 to +38 points among likely voters.
That’s in stark contrast to likely voters aged 18 to 29, where just 51% support Harris and a similar number, 48%, support Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump is polling closer than usual to Harris among Hispanics but trailing her by 17 points among likely voters, a better showing for Trump than in previous elections: Biden won by 33 points among Hispanics in 2020 and Hillary Clinton won by 40 points in 2016, according to ABC News exit polls.
Issues and Attributes
While overall voting preferences remain stable, views on issues and attributes remain stable as well: The economy and inflation continue to dominate as key issues in the election, with Trump leading by seven points in trust to address each issue.
On the next most important issues, Harris holds a 7-point lead on “protecting American democracy” and a 9-point lead on handling health care. On crime and safety, the gap is tight.
It’s also clear why Trump continues to focus on immigration: He is 10 points more trusting of how he will handle immigration than Harris, while Harris beats Trump by 14 points on abortion and 16 points on how he will handle race relations, both of which he rates less important than Harris.
Issue importance varies between groups. A notable gender gap is that women are 14 points more likely than men to list abortion as the most important issue at the polls, 68% vs. 54%, and this difference holds regardless of age. Women are also 11 points more likely than men to list health care as the most important issue, 82% vs. 71%. Still, the economy and inflation top the issue list for both women and men.
Harris’ best performance against Trump continues to be in personal qualities, explaining why she is trying to focus in this area: She leads Trump by 32 points in the physical health needed to serve effectively, 17 points in honesty and trustworthiness, 10 points in mental clarity, 10 points in the ability to understand the problems of people like herself, and 7 points in the ability to better express one’s personal values. Again, all of these are essentially the same as they were before the debate.
Overall favorability ratings are essentially unchanged, with 47 percent saying they have a favorable impression of Harris, compared with 35 percent saying they think Trump is favorable. Still, they’re neck and neck when it comes to being seen as suitable to be president, with 53 percent saying Harris is suitable and 49 percent saying Trump is suitable. But the gap is wider among independents, with 56 percent saying the same about Harris, compared with 48 percent saying the same about Trump.
Discussion
Finally, what’s noteworthy about the debate is that 95% of Democrats say Harris won, while only 75% of Republicans say Trump won. (61% of independents chose Harris.) Similarly, among Trump’s own supporters, 78% say Trump won the debate, while 97% of Harris’ supporters expect her to win. (These results include people who initially said the debate was a draw, but then predicted either Harris or Trump would win.)
While 58% of people overall say Harris won, that number rises to 64% among those who watched all or part of the debate. This reflects the fact that Harris supporters were 8 percentage points more likely to have watched the debate than Trump supporters. Harris supporters are also more likely to have read, watched or listened to follow-up or commentary about the debate: 75% said so, compared with 59% of Trump supporters.
Methodology
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online September 11-13, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random sample of 3,276 adults nationwide. By partisan affiliation, Democrats, Republicans and Independents were 29-29-30%. Results have a sampling error of 2 percentage points for the full sample, including design effects. Sample sizes were 2,772 registered voters and 2,196 likely voters, each with a 2-point margin of error. Sampling error is not the only source of poll variance.
The survey was conducted for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. More information on ABC News survey methodology can be found here.