Voters prefer former President Trump on the economy and immigration, but Vice President Harris is making headway on these issues and more in the first Power Rankings Issues Tracker since she became the Democratic nominee.
A broadly defined Harris is gaining ground
Will Harris push President Biden’s agenda if she wins this November, or does she still believe in more liberal policies from her 2019 presidential bid?
Republicans say the answer is “both,” but so far, voters aren’t sure if it’s either.
Trump wants America to see Harris as “dangerously liberal.” The former president has been reminding voters about policies Harris backed in previous campaigns, like decriminalizing border crossings and implementing the Green New Deal. He says running mate Tim Walz is the other half of the “most radical left duo in American history.”
At the same time, Trump wants voters to see the vice president’s policies as a continuation of Biden’s. Trump has hammered her on rising prices and the border, and at a news conference yesterday, said “you don’t have to imagine what a Kamala Harris presidency would be because you are living through that nightmare right now.”
The logic is that Americans disapproved of Biden and saw him as too liberal, so telling them that Harris is a more left-wing version of Biden and also his right-hand woman will make voters wary of four more Democratic years.
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That strategy has left voters with a broad impression of a brand-new candidate.
The results of the Issues Tracker show that voters prefer Harris to Biden on the major issues in this race. She lags Trump on the two most important issues – the economy and immigration – but has improved on the sitting president’s performance earlier this year.
Harris also enjoys leads on three qualities: honesty, temperament, and mental soundness. Trump has an edge on strong leadership but doesn’t lead on any traits.
Next week, the vice president will sell her agenda at the Democratic National Convention.
Harris campaign officials have been telling news outlets, including Fox, that she isn’t pursuing the same policies that she was in 2019. But she is also reportedly putting distance between herself and Biden on the unpopular parts of his administration.
In other words, voters’ broad impression of Harris is working for her, and her campaign wants to keep it that way.
Issues: Voters prefer Trump on the economy and immigration, Harris leads on abortion and three other issues
Voters continue to say three issues are more important to their vote than any others in the latest Fox News national survey: the economy (38%), immigration (14%), and abortion (14%).
These are the issues likely to define the presidential race.
Trump has a dominant and consistent lead on immigration. He beats Harris by 14 points in the Fox News Poll, 16 points in Marist’s poll, 18 points in Marquette University’s poll, and 13 points in the Wall Street Journal’s poll; all conducted after Biden stood down from re-election.
Immigration has also shifted the least out of the top three issues since May, as 87% of voters say they consider the situation at the southern border either an emergency or a major problem.
Trump’s advantage on the economy has slipped. He has an overall lead of 8 points in this tracker, down from 15 in May. That is a 7-point shift in Harris’ direction.
Democrats will be relieved at data showing inflation slowed in July, even as economists remain concerned about the possibility of a recession.
Harris is stronger on abortion policy. She is ahead of Trump by a range of 15 to 23 points on the issue, giving her an overall lead of 16 points over Trump.
The former president has made clear that he wants to leave abortion policy up to the states, and this year’s Republican Party platform avoided mentioning the basis for a national ban for the first time in four decades. But polls still show that the Supreme Court’s decision to end the right to abortion was unpopular; something Harris has spoken about extensively on the trail.
Harris also has 11-point leads on health care and preserving democracy, and an 18-point lead on climate change.
Qualities: Harris wipes out Biden’s age issue, and voters see her as more honest and temperate
In the first Issues Tracker, Trump’s largest lead on any issue or quality was age. The former president enjoyed a 21-point advantage on that issue, and that was before President Biden’s dismal debate performance in June.
In this tracker, the pendulum has swung dramatically in the other direction.
Harris now has a 45-point advantage on age, as 48% of voters say Trump is best described as “too old” to run for President in the Journal’s poll, and 57% of voters say that term describes Trump very well or somewhat well in the Marquette survey.
To be clear, this does not make age a worse liability for Trump than it was for Biden.
The Journal’s poll, which pits the candidates against each other directly, shows that 48% of voters say Trump is too old, with only 2% giving Harris the same descriptor. But another 47% say that “neither” candidate is too old to run for president.
That is very different to Biden’s position in May, when a majority of independents and Democrats said that the president was too old to be an effective president now.
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The results just show that Democrats no longer have an age problem, and the party’s voters have “too old” on the list of things they don’t like about Donald Trump.
Harris’ more important advantages are on honesty (+16), temperament (+13), and mental soundness (+8). Biden led on the first two in the May tracker, and Harris has built on his margin since entering the race.
Trump doesn’t have a lead on any candidate traits. He is ahead of Harris on strong leadership by 5 points, but that is within the tracker’s margin of error.
(Issues and qualities are now included in the tracker if the Fox News Poll or at least two eligible polls asked about them. More methodology notes are available in the first Issues Tracker.)
DNC special coverage starts today on Fox News Channel
All eyes are on Chicago this week for the Democratic National Convention. In addition to expected speeches from Harris and Walz, President Biden, former Presidents Obama and Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are confirmed speakers.
Fox News special coverage begins today with Fox News Sunday anchored by Shannon Bream on FOX, followed by America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino starting at 10AM ET on Fox News Channel.
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