It may be weeks before former Vice President Joe Biden makes a final announcement about his running mate, but some voters have a clear preference: Senator Elizabeth Warren or Senator Kamala Harris, according to recent polls.
The two senators, who ran for the presidency, topped a list of several contenders reported in a series of June polls: a Yahoo News / YouGov poll of registered voters conducted June 9-10 had Warren in the lead, with 30 percent of respondents supporting it and 24 percent supporting Harris. Meanwhile, a Monmouth University poll of primary Democratic voters conducted June 1-9 found Harris with 28 percent support, while 13 percent preferred Warren.
Another candidate who obtained significant figures in a recent poll was former Georgia Governor candidate Stacey Abrams. When USA Today and the University of Suffolk asked Democrats about their enthusiasm for the different candidates, Harris, Abrams, and Warren received the most positive responses. In that poll, conducted June 25-29, 36 percent of Democrats said they would be excited about Harris as a running mate, while 28 percent said the same for Abrams and 27 percent Warren.
In recent weeks, polls have also shown that Biden’s requests to select a black running mate have been registered with a growing number of voters: 72 percent of Democrats in the Today Today / Suffolk poll agreed on that it was “important” that Biden chose a woman of color.
Experts caution, however, against over-reading the overall results of these polls, given some of the factors at stake: both Warren and Harris have extensive public service records and are likely to see a big boost due to their name recognition, for example. “It’s more about who people recognize and who they know better than anything else,” says Lonna Atkeson, professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy at the University of New Mexico. Furthermore, she points out, the vice presidential election has historically not been linked to the electoral result nor to a broader electoral participation.
Still, Biden’s choice to run for the nomination may carry more weight in this election cycle given his age (if elected, he will be the oldest president to have been inaugurated), and these polls provide a snapshot of the sentiment of voters towards the different candidates. According to Politico, Biden has not yet landed on a short list, and he is not expected to announce his final decision until early August.
While politics isn’t the only thing he thinks about: Biden has said he has focused on a candidate who is ready to be president “on the first day” and “sympathetic” with his approach to government: these polls offer limited insight. who some voters currently favor.
A brief summary of recent surveys and what to do with them.
Surveys so far have highlighted two key conclusions. One is that the respective profiles of Warren and Harris currently dwarf those of other contenders whose names have been submitted, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Representative Val Demings (D-FL). . The other is that neither legislator is a fugitive favorite. In the Yahoo News / YouGov and Monmouth University polls, neither Warren nor Harris garnered the support of the majority of respondents, a sign that many voters are still open to other options.
Warren has been highly ranked in various polls, particularly among younger voters.
In the mid-June Yahoo News / YouGov poll, Warren rose 6 points with 30 percent support, compared to Harris’ 24 percent. They were followed by Abrams and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who got 14 percent support. (Since then, Klobuchar has withdrawn her name from consideration.)
As captured by the YouGov poll, Warren’s support is not the same across different demographics: She had particularly strong support among voters 18-29 and 30-44, while she and Harris were more closely linked among voters 45 to 64 and 65 and older. Harris and Abrams led Warren among black voters, with 25% and 22% support, respectively, compared to Warren’s 15%.
Meanwhile, in the Monmouth poll in June, which surveyed Democratic primary voters located predominantly in Iowa and New Hampshire, Harris was the best overall choice. She garnered 28 percent support, followed by Warren with 13 percent, Klobuchar with 12 percent, and Abrams with 10 percent. The most recently conducted June USA Today / Suffolk poll also showed that Democratic voters were very excited about Harris, Abrams, and Warren, in that order.
A May Morning Consult survey, which had a 2 percent margin of error, also had Warren and Harris survey closely. Adding any one of them to the ticket would have an effectively neutral impact on the interest of the general electorate in choosing Biden, according to the poll: 26% of registered voters told Morning Consult that they would be more likely to support Biden if he chose Warren. as his running mate, while 23 percent said they would be less likely to endorse him. Harris saw a comparable breakdown: 22 percent of registered voters were more likely to support Biden with her on the ticket, while 21 percent were less likely to do so.
However, Democratic voters were more likely than Republicans or independents to say that they would be more open to voting for Biden if their choice of vice president is Warren or Harris.
Some, but not all, voters support the push for a more diverse ticket.
Recent polls have found that many Democrats think that Biden should choose a woman of color as his vice president. Data from the Monmouth poll, which focused on Democratic primary voters, underlined this point: In it, 59 percent of respondents thought that having a woman of color as a running mate would increase Biden’s likelihood of winning. The USA Today / Suffolk poll also found that an overwhelming majority of Democrats thought it was important for Biden to nominate a woman of color.
Voters who write large, however, seem much more ambivalent. Take the New York Times / Siena College poll released last week: In the poll, conducted in early June, 14 percent of voters said they believed Biden should select a vice president who was black, while 82 percent percent said race shouldn’t be a factor. That result is slightly different from a June Morning Consult poll, which found that 29 percent of registered voters thought it was important for Biden to select a woman of color, an increase of 7 points from April.
“Voters are not the best strategists, but the nominee must be vigilant at his base. And many Democratic voters think having a woman of color on the ticket would be a home run, ”Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray said in a statement.
The push for Biden to endorse a vice president who is a woman of color, and a black woman in particular, comes from a couple of different places, including the recent focus on tackling systemic racism in the police and increasing representation in a variety of ways. of fields. There is also a sense that Biden owes much of his primary success to the support of black voters, as well as the possibility that a black running mate may help spur more voter turnout in November, though the likelihood that The latter is an open question.
“We need the United States to imagine the possibilities that exist to change the face of leadership,” says Glynda Carr, president and CEO of Higher Heights for America, an organization dedicated to supporting black women running for public office.
While vice presidential elections have rarely affected election results in the past, there is a chance that a more diverse ticket will increase turnout, which is vital for Democrats to win this fall. As experts have emphasized, while Biden has seen strong support from black voters, that’s not the same as voter enthusiasm, a dynamic that was evident during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 career.
In major battle states like Michigan and Wisconsin, for example, turnout rates declined among black voters between 2012 and 2016. Former President Barack Obama’s innovative nominations in 2008 and 2012 were seen as a major reason for increased turnout. of black voters in both elections, and The historic election of a black woman as vice president could lead to a similar rebound. A Northwestern University poll conducted in late May indicated this: 57 percent of African-American voters surveyed said they would be more excited to vote for Biden if she selected a black woman for her running mate.
“I hope that the selection of a black woman as vice president will increase enthusiasm for the election by setting the stage for another landmark development,” Keneshia Grant, an assistant professor of political science at Howard University, told Vox. Grant emphasized, however, that focusing on descriptive representation is far from sufficient: He noted that it was also important for both the vice presidential candidate and Biden himself to focus on policies prioritized by black voters.
However, whether the changes in participation will eventually materialize is uncertain.
[Chris Devine of the University of Dayton and Kyle Kopko of Elizabethtown College] He analyzed electoral and electoral data dating back more than 100 years, and found that vice presidential candidates generally only make a difference in the outcome of a general election when they are very popular or highly polarizing.
The Wall Street Journal in 2016 also analyzed years of electoral data and found that even when a vice presidential election was viewed favorably by voters in his party, the majority of voters finally said that the vice president’s election had no measurable impact on their vote. for president.
Biden’s age and the possibility that he will not seek reelection after his first term are some of the reasons why this year’s selection could be higher than in previous years. As Biden said, he is interested in finding a running mate who can rule from the start.
“I want someone strong and someone who can, who is ready to be president the first day,” he told CBS News in June.
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