Voters reveal what they really think of Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris has enjoyed a boost in the polls since replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for president and now voters have told Dailymail.com what they like and don't like about the vice president. When asked for a word or phrase to describe the best thing about Harris, the top answers were that she is a 'woman' and that she is 'not Trump.'
Those two words dominate a word cloud of responses generate from an online survey of 1,054 likely voters conducted by J.L. Partners. They show that Harris's gender is a firm selling point among American voters, even though she has avoided leaning into the historic nature of her candidacy in a country that has never elected a female president.
Other words include: Strong, competent, president, friendly and experience. When asked for their biggest hesitation about voting for Harris the answer is even clearer. The word 'liberal' dominates a cloud that includes 'experience', 'border', and 'woman.'
Taken overall, the word clouds show which Republican attack lines will find purchase and which will not resonate with voters. Independents and Republicans both plump for the word 'liberal' while for Democrats it is 'woman.'
James Johnson, co-founder of J.L. Partners, said there was fodder for both campaigns in the results. 'Kamala Harris has enjoyed a honeymoon with voters since Joe Biden dropped out of the race. But our survey shows that her appeal could be limited as she comes under greater scrutiny,' he said.
'Voters say the best things about her are that she is a "woman" and that she is not "Trump." But Harris had made clear that she does not want to make much of her gender, and being the candidate who is not Trump can only take you so far, as Biden discovered to his cost. 'At the same time, Republican messaging hitting her as a liberal is finding its target. Independents see that as their biggest hesitation in voting for her.
'Both sides will see something positive in the results, and the fact that only one in five voters say they know a great deal about Harris means they each have scope to further define in her for the electorate.' The survey also found that 20 percent of voters believed they knew a lot about Harris. Some four percent said they knew nothing at all, and 21 percent said they knew not very much. Biden's decision to stand aside last month has boosted Democratic fortunes.
This week, the Harris campaign brought in $36 million in the 24 hours after she announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. And she now holds a lead in polls. A rolling average maintained by the statistics website FiveThirtyEight gives her a two-point lead over Trump. His allies were initially delighted when Biden stood aside, expecting weeks of Democratic infighting as they squabbled over a replacement. But Democrats settled on Harris within 24 hours, leaving the Trump campaign trying to adjust to a new opponent.
It has tried to tie Harris to the immigration crisis, labeling her the 'border czar,' and saying that her pick of Walz showed she was in the grip of the liberal or even 'Hamas' wing of her party. This week she has been blitzing battleground states with Walz. On Friday they were headed to Arizona, before hitting Nevada on Saturday. In contrast Trump has been holed up at his Mar-a-Lago headquarters in Florida for most of the week, heading to the solid red state of Montana Friday to support a Republican Senate candidate.
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