Trump Leads, Kamala Harris on Track to Lose Popular Vote

According to a Gallup poll conducted this month, voters’ party identification and other factors suggest Democratic nominee Kamala Harris may be on track to lose the popular vote to former President Donald Trump in November.

Gallup’s party identification measure has accurately predicted the popular vote of the past four presidential elections within one percentage point.

“Nearly all Gallup measures that have shown some relationship to past presidential election outcomes or that speak to current perceptions of the two major parties favor the Republican Party over the Democratic Party,” reported Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey Jones, PhD, on Tuesday.

The poll, which surveyed voters between September 3 and 15, found that 48% of respondents identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning – three points higher than the 45% of respondents who identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning.

Republicans had an even greater advantage of five points when respondents were asked which party is “better able to handle [the] most important problem” facing the nation.

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Forty-six percent of the poll’s respondents said the Republicans would better tackle the top issue, compared to only 41% who said the Democratic Party would handle it better.

Gallup noted that both of these metrics have a strong “relationship to past presidential election outcomes.”

The recent poll also found that Republicans hold advantages in virtually all party measures with moderate relationships “to past presidential election outcomes.”

Jones pointed out that per Gallup’s study, a dismal 22% of voters “are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States” under the Biden-Harris administration.

He noted: “Satisfaction levels this low have been associated with incumbent presidents losing their reelection bids in 1980 (19%), 1992 (22%) and 2020 (28%).”

However, the Gallup senior editor added that in cycles with no incumbent on the ballot, such as the current cycle, “satisfaction has been less strongly related to the eventual outcome.”

Low economic confidence and the 39% approval rating of President Joe Biden are also measures that Gallup indicated at this time moderately work to the advantage of the Republican ticket.

Respondents also chose Republicans (50%) over Democrats (44%) by a six-point margin when asked which party would be “better able to keep America prosperous” – a metric that also has a moderate track record of predicting past election outcomes.

Florida’s Voice Assistant News Director Eric Daugherty wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday that “Gallup track record is pretty scarily accurate on the national popular vote by tracking PARTY ID/LEAN.”

He highlighted that when Gallup asked voters the same question about party identification in the run-up to the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections, every time the margin of answers to this question was within one point of the election’s final popular vote margin.

Furthermore, in all of these past election cycles, Gallup’s responses slightly overestimated the performance of the Democratic candidate.

In 2008, Gallup found Democrats to have an eight-point lead in party identification and lean. Barack Obama would go on to win the popular vote by 7.2 points in November of that year.

Four years later in 2012, Democrats’ party identification lead shrunk to four points, as measured by Gallup. Obama won re-election carrying 3.9% of the popular vote.

In 2016, Gallup found Democrats with a three-point advantage in this metric. Failed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by just over two points – but lost the election to Donald Trump by a significant electoral vote margin due to her support being concentrated mainly in populous deep-blue states.

Finally, in 2020, after Gallup showed the Democrats with a five-point party identification lead, Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points.

Daugherty pointed out that if Gallup’s measure is to be accurate for a fifth consecutive presidential election cycle, it would mean that Trump would win the popular vote – becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to do so in 20 years.

“Just remember: 2016 was a Clinton+2.1 environment and Trump swept the battlegrounds,” Daugherty wrote. “What happens if he outright wins the popular vote?”

All of the aforementioned polling results were taken in the third quarter (Q3) of their respective presidential election years.

RealClearPolitics President and Co-Founder Tom Bevan noted on X that the Republicans’ three-point party identification and lean advantage in Gallup’s September 2024 poll marks the “First time Republicans have led on Party ID in Q3 of presidential year” since 1992.

In the eight presidential elections from 1992 to 2020, Republicans only won the popular vote once – in 2004. In that cycle, Gallup’s party identification measure showed the two major parties tied. Then-President George W. Bush won the popular vote by 2.4%.

LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

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