Despite not holding any major interviews or press conferences since becoming the Democrats’ de facto nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris’ favorability rating has skyrocketed with the help of positive media coverage since President Joe Biden left the race on July 21.
Beginning on July 22, one day after Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed his vice president, Harris’s favorability rating began to climb, according to polling compiled by RealClearPolitics. On July 22, Harris’ average favorability rating stood at a dismal 37.9%, but it didn’t stay below 40% for long.
A week after Biden dropped out and Democrats pushed Harris as the new nominee, the vice president’s favorability rating jumped to 41.7%. It continued to climb into August, reaching 45.5% on the 15th, and as of Thursday, it stands at 47.2%. As recently as late June and early July, some polls showed Harris’ favorable/unfavorable spread underwater by more than 20 points. Now, recent polls from Morning Consult, Rasmussen, and Emerson have Harris in the green by 1-4 points.
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Harris’ favorability rating has overtaken that of her rival, Donald Trump, who currently holds an average 44.2% favorability rating, per RCP. The vice president’s rating has also overtaken her boss’s favorability rating, which is barely eclipsing 40% as of Thursday.
Look at Kamala Harris’s net favorable rating over the last 12 months. pic.twitter.com/Jax6Sm4ZfC
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) August 29, 2024
The vice president is also enjoying a rise in polling, marking a significant improvement for Democrats in 2024 battleground states. According to a Fox News poll released on Wednesday, Harris is polling better against Trump than Biden was in important swing states and closing the gap in Sun Belt states. Trump — who had a comfortable lead in the polling against Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina — is now only leading Harris by 1 point in North Carolina and trailing the vice president by 1-2 points in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada.
Harris, who has been slammed for avoiding major media appearances, will finally sit down for a pre-taped interview with CNN anchor Dana Bash that will be broadcast on Thursday night. The Democratic nominee’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will join Harris for the CNN interview.
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Harris has yet to release any substantive policy platform on her campaign website nearly 40 days after Biden dropped out of the race. The few policies she has proposed, such as instituting price controls on groceries, imposing an unprecedented 25% unrealized capital gains tax, and giving first-time homeowners a federal handout, have been slammed by economic analysts and Republicans as unconstitutional and “communist.”