Kamala Harris has re-energized Democratic hopes to win the White House and is gaining ground on economic issues that were Donald Trump’s biggest advantage earlier this year.
We have mentioned before how surging Democratic enthusiasm has given a slight bump to the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment. Back in July, the index fell to 66.4, the lowest point since the prior October. Since then it has climbed for two months in a row, reaching 69.0 in the preliminary September reading.
The biggest driver of this increase has been improved sentiment among Democrats. In July, the index for Democrats fell to 83, the lowest level in over a year. The survey’s barometer of current conditions dropped to 85, the worst reading since the prior August, and the expectations gauge fell to 81.7, the lowest reading since May of last year.
Now, the Democrat index is up to 92.6, with the current conditions measure up to 90.8 and the expectations metric up to 93.7. Democrats who feel better about current economic conditions are a lot more hopeful about the economy’s future.
Vice President Kamala Harris gestures during a campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, on September 20, 2024. (Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Who Do You Think Will Win?
It’s now pretty obvious that this summer’s diminished views of the economy and its prospects among Democrats were rooted in worries that Joe Biden would lose the White House. And the improvement in sentiment is due to increased optimism about Harris’s electoral chances.
In presidential election years, the University of Michigan survey asks consumers who they think will win the election. This differs from the typical political poll that asks who a respondent supports or hopes will win the election. In July, Trump was leading in this poll, with 48 percent expecting him to win and 44 percent expecting Biden to win.
Among Democrats, the share expecting Biden to win was much higher, at 78 percent. But that was significantly lower than the 85 percent of Republicans who expected Trump to win, indicating much more confidence on the part of Republicans. Trump also had a wide lead among independents, 53 percent of whom expected Trump to win versus 41 percent who expected Biden to win.
There was a similar disparity on the flip side of consumers expecting the rival party’s candidate to win. Twenty-one percent of Democrats said they expected Trump to win. Just 14 percent of Republicans expected Harris to win.
The exit of Biden from the race and the ascension of Harris to the Democrat nomination has turned that around. In survey results released Friday, Harris took a commanding lead in the expectations measure. Fifty-eight percent now expect Harris to win, compared with 34 percent who expect Trump to win.
Democrats have rallied around their candidate. Eighty-nine percent say they expect Harris to win, with just nine percent saying they expect Trump to win. Harris also leads among independents, with 57 percent saying they expect she will win and 37 percent saying they expect Trump will win.
Republicans still think their candidate will win, of course. But their optimism is noticeably diminished. Seventy-one percent of Republicans now expect Trump to win, a decline of 14 points from the survey released in July. Twenty-five percent of Republicans say they think Harris will win, a nine point gain for Harris.
The result is that Democrats have now taken the lead in electoral optimism and are even more optimistic now than Republicans were back when Biden was the nominee.
Republicans and Independents Still Think Trump Is Better for the Economy
The University of Michigan survey asks two other questions related to the election: which candidate will be best for the economy and which candidate will be best for your own personal finances. Trump had a lead over Biden for both questions in the survey released in July. Now Harris has a narrow lead on the economy question and is tied with Trump on the personal finances question.
The details are informative—and a bit curious. In the earlier survey, 75 percent of Democrats said Biden would be better for the economy. Now 83 percent say Harris will be better for the economy. So, Democrats are much more enthusiastic about Harris’s impact on the economy—or at least say they are—even though Harris has done very little to explain how her economic policies would be different from those advocated by her former running mate.
Viewers gather to watch a debate between Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former President Donald Trump on Sept. 10, 2024, in San Antonio, TX. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
But it is not just Democrats. Harris has gained ground among independents, as well. In July, 26 percent of independents said Harris would be better for the economy, versus 45 percent who said Trump would be better. Twenty-eight percent said it would make no difference. Now, 33 percent say Harris would be better and Trump’s support has fallen to 39 percent. Most of that change has come from people switching from Trump to Harris, as the “no difference” share is almost unchanged at 27 percent.
On personal finances, Harris has also closed the gap. Thirty-two percent of consumers said Biden would be better for their household finances, behind Trump’s 39 percent. Now both Harris and Trump score 37 percent.
Harris has gained support among her own party. Where 71 percent of Democrats said Biden was better for their personal finances, 75 percent of Democrats say Harris is. Twenty-five percent of Democrats said it made no difference who won when Biden was the candidate. Now just 18 percent say that.
Among independents, Trump held the lead in personal finances over Biden by 23 points, at 44 percent to 21 percent. Harris has narrowed that gap to 10 points, with 29 percent saying Harris would be better and 39 percent saying Trump would be. The “no difference” share declined from 34 percent to 30 percent.
If there’s a silver-lining here for Trump, it’s that he still leads among independents and has not lost much ground at all among Republicans. When he was running against Biden, 89 percent of Republicans said Trump was better for the economy. Compared with Harris, 88 percent say Trump is better. On personal finances, 86 percent of Republicans said Trump was better than Biden. Eighty-four percent say Trump is better than Harris. The share of Republicans who say that it makes no difference for the economy fell from eight to five percent. On personal finances, the no difference share went from 11 percent to 10 percent.
The problem in these numbers for Trump is that such a big part of the surge behind Kamala’s numbers come from within her own party. There’s probably very little Trump can do to change the perception of Democrats about who is likely to win or whose policies are better for personal finances or the economy. His leads in those questions came largely from lower levels of Democrat optimism.
To reopen his leads on the economy and personal finances, Trump will need to win back the support of independents and make sure he doesn’t lose support among Republicans. And he needs to reverse the decline from 85 percent to 71 percent among Republicans when it comes to expectations that he will win.