Vice President Kamala Harris is making unexpected gains among Republican voters, according to recent polls.
As the 2024 presidential race intensifies, multiple polls suggest a growing number of Republicans are shifting their support from former President Donald Trump to Harris. This surprising trend could reshape the election dynamics, giving Harris a potential edge in key battleground states as both candidates fight for the presidency.
According to the latest national New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted between September 29 and October 6, 9 percent of Republicans polled said they planned to support Harris in the November election, up from 5 percent last month.
The latest Cygnal poll, conducted between October 2 and 3, showed a similar trend. Nine percent of Republicans polled this month said they support the vice president, up from 3 percent last month.
Meanwhile, a poll conducted by Emerson College between September 29 and October 1 showed that 7 percent of Republicans were breaking for Harris, up from 5 percent at the beginning of September.
In contrast, polls show that Trump’s support from Democrats has decreased from 6 percent in the previous Emerson College poll to 4 percent in the most recent one. The former president also saw a decrease in support from Democrats in polls conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, from 4 percent to 3 percent.
Newsweek reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.
Harris has won over Republicans because she has made a “concerted effort” to appeal to such voters in the swing states, says Thomas Gift, the director of the University College of London Centre on US Politics.
“To her credit, Harris has made more of a concerted effort to peel off Republican support than some Democrats in the past. In Pennsylvania, for example, the Harris team has opened up 50 headquarters, mainly in more rural, conservative parts of the state with an eye toward making inroads with GOP voters who are unenthusiastic about Trump,” Gift told Newsweek.
“As we saw in the primaries with Nikki Haley voters, there’s a nontrivial segment of the Republican electorate who consider themselves right-leaning but just can’t bring themselves to cast their ballot for Trump.”
Gift added that Harris’ campaign strategy has differed from that of her predecessor, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables” at a campaign fundraising event during the 2016 race.
“Harris’s effort to reach across the aisle contrasts markedly with Hillary Clinton in 2016, who labeled many of these voters “deplorables” and de facto wrote off large swathes of the Republican electorate,” Gift said.
Meanwhile, Mike Tappin, an honorary fellow at Keele University and co-author of American Politics Today, had a different explanation, telling Newsweek that the former president’s lack of appeal to female voters could explain the shift.
Harris’ “stand on a woman’s right to an abortion has drawn many women voters to her cause and away from the Trump candidacy,” he said.
“In June 2022, the Republican and very conservative Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, overturned the Roe v. Wade decision [of] 1973, which allowed women in America the right to an abortion under specific conditions. The Roe decision said it was up to the individual states to decide,” Tappin said.
“Donald Trump has been equivocal in his views on this issue. Many Republican-dominated state governments are starting to criminalize abortion for its citizens, and in some states, that medical staff who perform an abortion could be charged with murder.”
He continued: “The final problem, related to this, is that Trump is perceived to have a problem with women voters, is his alleged misogyny and cavalier treatment of women. In January 2024, E. Jean Carroll was awarded combined damages of $88.3 million against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, a charge he denied. Trump has appealed the decision.”
Polls have shown that women overwhelmingly support Harris, with 56 percent of female voters supporting Harris in the most recent New York Times/Siena College poll. Meanwhile, a survey published Thursday by Emerson College found that Harris leads among women in every swing state other than Arizona. In the Grand Canyon State, 50 percent of female respondents said they backed Trump, while 47 percent favored Harris.
“With the November 5th election so close, how women who make up the largest proportion of the electorate vote will be critical in determining the result, especially in the “swing” states,” Tappin said.
Last month, former Republican Representative Liz Cheney endorsed Harris.
“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. And because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris,” Cheney said at Duke University.
Days later, Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, said he planned to vote for Harris, as well.
“In our nation’s 248 year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump,” he said in a statement. “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Liz Cheney joined Harris on the campaign trail this month at an event in Ripon, Wisconsin.
Trump previously said in a Truth Social post that women will be “happy” and “great again” if he wins the presidency.
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