Exclusive: Harris could help Biden with women, young voters, maybe some
Republicans too - Reuters/Ipsos poll
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[August 13, 2020]
By Chris Kahn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly nine out of 10
Democrats approve of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as their party's vice
presidential nominee, and she is more popular than presidential
candidate Joe Biden among women, young voters and some Republicans,
according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
The Aug. 11-12 public opinion survey also found that 60% of Americans,
including 87% of Democrats and 37% of Republicans, considered the
selection of Harris - the first Black woman and Asian American nominated
for vice presidency - to be a "major milestone" for the United States.
The U.S. Senator from California is viewed about as favorably or better
than Biden in most major demographic groups, the poll showed,
highlighting her potential to help the former vice president expand his
support in November's election.
Harris, 55, is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants and made
her own bid for the White House. She was a former prosecutor and state
attorney general in California, and became only the second Black female
U.S. senator in history when elected in 2016.
The poll showed Biden's lead over Republican President Donald Trump was
effectively unchanged after he announced his running mate choice,
increasing by 1 percentage point among all Americans to an 8-point
advantage - well within the poll's credibility interval - when compared
with a similar poll that ran on Monday and Tuesday.
Forty-six percent of U.S. adults said they would vote for a Biden/Harris
ticket, while 38% would vote for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. A
similar poll that ran on Monday and Tuesday showed that 44% would vote
for Biden while 37% would back Trump.
The latest poll also found that 56% of Americans have a favorable
impression of Harris, which is about the same as the number who favor
Biden. Forty-two percent of U.S. adults say they have a favorable view
of Trump and 47% said the same of Pence.
Among women, 60% said they have a favorable view of Harris, compared
with 53% who felt the same way about Biden. Women are the dominant force
in American elections: they make up a bigger proportion of the U.S.
electorate than men, and a surge in support for Democrats among white,
college-educated women helped the party retake the U.S. House of
Representatives in 2018.
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Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe
Biden and vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris are seen
at the stage during a campaign event, their first joint appearance
since Biden named Harris as his running mate, at Alexis Dupont High
School in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., August 12, 2020.
REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Biden already has an advantage over Trump among women overall, but
he has not improved his standing among black women in recent months,
while white women without college degrees still largely favor Trump.
EDGE WITH REPUBLICANS
In addition, about 25% of Republicans said they had a favorable view
of Harris and approve of her choice as Biden's running mate. Only
about 20% of Republicans said they have a similarly favorable view
of Biden.
In a close election, peeling off even a small number of voters from
the Republican Party could make a difference to the Democrats,
political analysts said.
Harris also is a little more popular among American adults who are
younger than 35 years old: 62% said they view Harris favorably,
while 60% said the same of Biden.
Public opinion could change and Trump's re-election campaign
sharpens its criticism of the Democratic challengers. Within minutes
of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday, Trump had called Harris “nasty,”
“horrible” and “disrespectful," while his campaign painted her as an
extremist who would yank the moderate Biden to the left.
In choosing Harris, Biden heeded calls from Black leaders and
activists to choose a woman of color as a running mate and avoid a
repeat of 2016, when the first decline of Black voter turnout in 20
years helped Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton. Black
Americans - and Black women particularly - are the most loyal
Democratic constituencies.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout
the United States. It gathered responses from 1,000 adults,
including 389 Republicans and 419 Democrats. It has a credibility
interval, a measure of precision, of about 3 percentage points.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn, Editing by Soyoung Kim and Grant McCool)
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