Voters See A Choice Between “Leadership” And “Likability”: Gallup

By Lidia Saad of Gallup.

Recent ratings of the 2024 presidential candidates’ personal qualities show Vice President Kamala Harris with a strong advantage over former President Donald Trump in U.S. voter perceptions of being likable, while holding smaller leads for having strong moral character and being honest and trustworthy. Trump outpaces Harris in perceptions of being a strong and decisive leader and being able to get things done.

Despite this clear image distinction — Harris credited with character, Trump with leadership — neither candidate has a perceptual edge in voters’ beliefs that each possesses five other presidential competencies: managing the government effectively, displaying good judgment in a crisis, having a vision for the country’s future, caring about the needs of people, and being someone people would be proud to have as president.

These findings are from a Sept. 16-28 Gallup survey, conducted after the Sept. 10 presidential debate that gave Americans their one opportunity of the campaign to see the candidates interact.

Perceptions of Trump are similar to what Gallup found at the same time in 2020, except voters are now slightly more likely to believe he would display good judgment in a crisis, up six percentage points to 52%.

Trump’s rating for being honest and trustworthy is higher now than his 38% rating in 2016 when he won the election. However, even at that lower level, Trump’s honesty rating exceeded Hillary Clinton’s, at 31%. This changed in 2020 when, despite seeing his “honest” score improve to 41%, Trump trailed Joe Biden by 11 points on this character dimension.

In fact, in the three presidential election cycles since 2012, when Gallup first measured presidential qualities this way, the candidate with the higher honest/trustworthy score has won. Other characteristics have not been asked frequently enough to observe their track record.

Summary Assessments Show Mixed Results

Harris leads Trump by 51% to 45% on a different question that asks, more broadly, whether each candidate has “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.” Thus, although Trump separately does better on the “strong and decisive leader” item, Harris’ higher ratings for being likable and of strong moral character may count more in voters’ answers to this question.

At the same time, the two are tied in Americans’ views of each on the issues. About half (49%) say they agree with Trump “on the issues that matter most to you,” and 47% agree with Harris.

Democrats See Harris in Better Terms Than Republicans See Trump

Most partisans believe their own candidate possesses the positive characteristics tested in the poll, but Democrats are more convinced than Republicans about certain ones.

Between 89% and 95% of Democrats say each characteristic applies to Harris. And while Republicans show similarly high regard for Trump on most of the traits, fewer than nine in 10 agree he is honest and trustworthy (84%), has strong moral character (82%) or is likable (74%).

Independents’ views are similar to those of all voters nationally on most of the qualities. Still, they are slightly less positive than Americans as a whole about Harris being caring, honest and trustworthy, or a strong and decisive leader. Independents are also less likely than the national average to say Trump has strong moral character, but they show slightly above-average belief that he is a strong leader.

More Voters Credit Harris Than Trump With Running an Effective Campaign

While Trump is tied with Harris in perceptions of being able to manage the federal government, he trails his Democratic opponent by 10 points in ratings of how they are running their campaigns. Whereas 56% of registered voters say Harris is doing an excellent or good job at this, 46% rate Trump as highly. The timing of the poll, coming soon after the presidential debate, could have influenced this result.

Trump’s deficit on this measure is due mainly to political independents, whose 41% excellent/good rating of his campaign is much closer to the 15% he receives from Democrats than to his 86% from Republicans. At the same time, independents’ 53% rating of Harris’ campaign falls squarely between the two partisan groups (90% from Democrats and 21% from Republicans).

Neither Candidate Viewed as More Politically Extreme

Even as Trump attempts to define Harris by some of the more liberal aspects of her record while Harris links Trump to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the candidates appear to be at a draw in terms of painting each other as extremist. Close to half of voters, 48%, say Trump’s political views are “too conservative,” while a statistically equivalent 51% call Harris “too liberal.” Most others see each as about right.

Notably, Harris is less likely to be branded “too liberal” than Biden was before he exited the race in June, when 58% said this of him. However, slightly more voters view Harris as too liberal than recent Democratic nominees Barack Obama in both 2008 (45%) and 2012 (47%) and John Kerry in 2004 (47%). She is also more likely to be called too liberal than Al Gore was in 2000 (35%), as well as Bill Clinton in 1992 (33%) and 1996 (36%). The question wasn’t asked about Hillary Clinton in 2016.

At 48%, Trump is more likely to be rated “too conservative” than were the Republicans who ran for president before him, including Mitt Romney (43% in 2012), John McCain (35% in 2008) and George W. Bush (40% in 2004).

Democrats More Satisfied With Harris Than Republicans Are With Trump

More Democrats, including independents who lean Democratic, say they are generally pleased with Harris as their party’s presidential nominee than Republicans and Republican leaners say they are pleased with Trump as theirs, 85% vs. 73%.

Democrats’ enthusiasm for Harris is in stark contrast to how they felt about Biden when he was still their party’s presumptive nominee in June. At that point, barely a third of Democrats (34%) were pleased with Biden, while 65% wished someone else were the nominee.

Today’s broad Democratic support for Harris being the nominee also contrasts with how Democrats felt in September 2016 after Hillary Clinton was nominated. Then, just over half (55%) said they were pleased, while 43% would rather have had someone else.

Republicans are about as pleased today to have Trump as their presidential nominee as they were in 2020 (74%), but they are happier now than when he first ran in 2016. In September of that year, barely half of Republicans (52%) were pleased with having Trump lead the GOP ticket.

Trump Hasn’t Inherited Biden’s Age Problem

The age of the candidates was a potential campaign liability for the Democrats earlier this year, when two-thirds of Americans in June thought the 81-year-old Biden was too old to be president. Far fewer, 37%, said the same about 78-year-old Trump.

Yet, despite Trump now being the older candidate by nearly 20 years, the percentage saying he’s too old hasn’t changed much since facing Harris, with 41% expressing that view today.

As the oldest Republican nominee, Trump is still more likely to be viewed as too old than John McCain was at age 72 in 2008 (20%) and Bob Dole was at age 73 in 1996 (32%).

Harris Compares Favorably With Biden

In addition to Democrats viewing her far more favorably as a candidate and ideologically than they did Biden, Harris is performing significantly better nationally on two other metrics than Biden was before he withdrew from the race.

Voters are more likely to say they agree with her on the issues than did so for Biden in June (47% vs. 37%, respectively).
Voters are more likely to say Harris has the leadership qualities needed in a president than thought Biden did (51% vs. 38%).

Biden’s readings are from a June 3-23 poll when his presidential approval rating was 38%. Following his withdrawal on July 21, the president’s job approval rating rose to 43% in an August Gallup poll. It dipped back to 39% in early September but is 45% in the latest poll. That’s his highest approval rating since August 2021, just before the United States’ troubled pullout of military forces from Afghanistan.

Bottom Line

Trump and Harris look evenly matched overall, with neither possessing knockout advantages in voters’ ratings of their images, perceptions of their ideology, agreement on issues, ratings for how they are conducting their campaigns, or perceptions that one or the other is too old. If the race comes down to which candidate can get better results in the Oval Office, Trump may have the upper hand. But if voters perceive leadership more holistically, factoring in their perceptions of each candidate’s personality and character, Harris may have the edge.