CNN —
As the 2024 presidential election season enters its final weeks, Kamala Harris has won a series of recent high-profile polls, according to CNN’s The Breakthrough, a polling project that tracks the average American. He has been attracting attention in interviews, and Donald Trump has been attracting attention at campaign rallies. During the contest, I heard, read, and watched presidential candidates. The survey also found that fraud remained a central theme of the election, with “lies” being the most commonly used word associated with the Trump campaign.
The disparity reflects each camp’s strategy with just over two weeks until Election Day. Both Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump have held rallies and spoken to podcasters, but Ms. Harris has increased her media appearances. Meanwhile, President Trump has held or is planning to hold large rallies, including rallies in deep blue states like California and New York, which has led to an uproar in the media and his usual political content. Some advisers argue that it will attract attention from both non-leaning and non-leaning voters. .
The poll was conducted by SSRS and Verasight on behalf of a research team from CNN, Georgetown University, and the University of Michigan, and was conducted from October 11 to 14. Meanwhile, the survey found that both candidates remained in the public eye. Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they had heard, read, or seen something related to Harris in the past week, and a similar number (73%) said the same about Trump.
And both mentioned the broader topic of “campaign” more than others. References to the election campaign accounted for 36% of responses regarding Harris and 28% of responses regarding Trump, an increase of 10 points for each candidate compared to the beginning of the month.
However, the details for each candidate were different. The word most commonly used to describe news about Harris was “interview,” with Americans talking about her appearances on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and the podcast “Call Her Daddy,” as well as Howard Stern’s and an interview with Stephen Colbert. Polls show that the audiences for these shows often vary; for example, the average age of respondents who mentioned “Call Her Daddy,” which mentioned Harris, was 32 years old; The average age of respondents who mentioned “Minutes” was 52 years old.
“(I) have heard a lot about Kamala Harris over the past few days,” one respondent wrote. “She’s doing the media blitz that everyone was hoping for.”
In contrast, when Americans were asked to describe news about Trump, “rally” was the second most popular word. The response cited events Trump has held in cities from Aurora, Colorado to Coachella, California, as well as plans for an upcoming rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
“I follow him on Instagram,” another wrote. “He posts all his political rallies there.”
Democratic lawmakers are also particularly likely to mention Detroit. In remarks at the Detroit Economic Club, President Trump called the city a “developing region” and said that if Harris were elected president, “eventually the entire country would look like Detroit.” I warned you.
The poll date was taken just after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, and like the poll conducted a week earlier, there was a lot of attention focused on the recent storm, and there was a lack of use related to both candidates. “Hurricane” was among the top five words asked. Polls show that when Republicans talk about President Trump’s hurricane response, they often pair it with the words “victim” and “help,” while Democrats say Trump is spreading disinformation about the hurricane. were more likely to be mentioned in the context of
The survey results show that “lie” has been in the top five words used when discussing Trump for the fifth consecutive week, and the first time it has topped the list.
“I just heard him speak at a rally on TV and all he does is lie!” one respondent wrote.
This phrase has also become a staple in Harris-related responses, although it is not as consistent or prominent. The poll also found that the sentiment of responses using the word “lies” was less negative about Harris than about Trump. This may perhaps reflect that some respondents used the term in the context of Harris being lied to, rather than that others had lied to them. .
“I heard she’s a liar,” one respondent wrote. “She did not cooperate with either of the two hurricanes that occurred in our country.”
“I read that Kamala Harris is pleading with people to stop lying about hurricane relief and hurricane control,” another wrote.
The sentiment behind the words Americans used to describe what they heard about Harris remained moderately more positive than the words they used to describe news about Trump, but at the Democratic National Convention It was a much smaller gap than the gap seen after ABC presidential debates. Sentiment does not refer to feelings about the candidate personally, but rather to the extent to which the terms and tone used to describe the candidate tend to be framed positively or negatively.
CNN’s Jennifer Asiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report.
