Voters trust Harris on many issues. Will they vote on it?

WASHINGTON (AP) — If the presidential election hinged on abortion or climate change, Kamala Harris might feel pretty confident about her chances on November 5thbased on the surveys. The Democratic candidate is also competitive against Republican Donald Trump on economic issues.

But Harris knows that this is an extremely close race — and that it could well serve as a test of how important the policy is to voters and which policies ultimately matter most.

The Vice President Trump leads Trump on abortion, election integrity, climate change, taxes on the middle class and dealing with natural disasters, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll.

She essentially disagrees with Trump on several specific economic issues, such as jobs and the cost of food and gasoline. The two are basically just as good at crime and crime Situation in the Middle East. Trump has a slight advantage over Harris on tariffs and a larger advantage on immigration.

Although Harris has a lead on a number of issues, there is still a lot of concern in her campaign about a historically close race. It's a sign that politics can be important – but it doesn't always outshine issues like personality, party loyalty or even demographic factors that shape it Voter identities.

The latest poll represents something of a change from 2020, when the pandemic was a top priority for many voters. But it also shows that Trump can no longer claim the economy as a relative strength of his candidacy, as was the case when President Joe Biden was still in the race. How voters think about the economy could prove crucial. A September AP-NORC poll found this is the top issue for many voters.

The Harris campaign has concluded in its own polls that the Democratic nominee is economically competitive with Trump, seeing this as a reflection of how she has emphasized the middle class in her speeches and advertising.

“She far outperforms Trump when it comes to understanding the needs of the middle class and working families,” said Molly Murphy, a Harris pollster. “Voters tend to trust that if you talk about something incessantly, you care.”

Xiaowen Xu, a psychologist at the College of William & Mary, emphasized that many factors come into play when understanding people's political leanings.

“Some will place more emphasis on policy, while others will see it as just a 'checkbox,' so to speak,” Xu said. “And factors such as personality differences, political identity, strength of political leanings, media consumption… can all contribute to how politics-related information is processed.”

Biden experienced this disparity firsthand before leaving the race. His advisers would point to data suggesting that he had outperformed Trump on policy details but that the economy was still poorly rated due to the impact of the rise in inflation in 2022 and doubts about his age. The political advantage was not enough to increase his popularity.

Trump has embraced his role as a real estate tycoon. He claimed at a recent round table that Harris' time as San Francisco's district attorney ruined the city and that he understands that because “I own property there.” At the same time, while Trump said inflation was bad, he also said that illegal border crossings were a bigger problem than the economy.

Trump had a 45% to 37% lead on immigration in the October poll, roughly matching his lead in the September and August polls. And it's an issue that was particularly important to GOP voters in their primaries earlier this year, when Trump promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

“Americans trust President Trump to get our economy back on track because he is a businessman with a track record of economic success since his first term in the White House,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump national press secretary. Campaign.

Trump has gone after Harris on a variety of issues, such as her 2019 call to ban fracking (which she has since rejected) and her willingness that same year to cut funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (she has since then called for more funding for border security). . He also attacked her support for transgender rights and the vague answers she sometimes gave to interview questions.

“I think she's curbed a lot of the advantages that Trump had earlier in the year, but it seems like some of the attacks on her are taking their toll,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican strategist who says persuadable voters appear to be still prefer Trump on issues like the economy and immigration.

Ruffini noted that Harris and her Democratic surrogates are increasingly focused on Trump's own weaknesses, such as former aides' claims that he is a fascist, his sometimes rambling speeches and the limits of his campaign plan. This suggests that Harris knows there is greater benefit in attacking Trump than in promoting the policy.

“What we're seeing in the Harris campaign's final stretch is that they're trying to highlight Trump's instability,” he said.

Still, Harris makes the case for the economy while spreading multiple messages. Her campaign on Wednesday highlighted a letter signed by 23 Nobel economists saying their policies were “far superior” to Trump's ideas. Her campaign has also referred to his tariff plans as a “national sales tax.”

Advertisements from groups supporting Harris showed voters abandoning Trump because, in their view, he was more important Tax cuts for billionaires than the middle class. Other ads to follow Trump's tariffs for increased spending on ordinary people, messages all intended to suggest that the former president is prioritizing himself.

The Democratic candidate called for $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, expanded tax breaks for parents, new benefits to encourage more startups and doubling registered apprenticeships to bolster the workforce. Her campaign has proposed high taxes on corporations and the wealthy to cover the costs of their programs without increasing projected budget deficits.

“These things have some appeal,” said Steven Durlauf, an economist at the University of Chicago. “There are really big differences between the candidates.”