What polls show about Tim Walz and JD Vance before Tuesday’s VP debate
WASHINGTON — Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, is less popular among voters than his Democratic rival, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Both Vance and Walz entered the spotlight this summer as relative political unknowns. As both running mates prepare to address large audiences in next week’s vice presidential debate, Democrats are more positive about Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris than Republicans are about Vance and former President Donald Trump.
The new survey’s findings strengthen the challenge for the Republican presidential nomination as voting begins in more and more states.
The poll found that negative feelings about Vance are significantly more widespread than positive opinions. About half of registered voters have a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of Vance, up from about 4 in 10 at the end of Julywhile about a quarter have a somewhat or very positive image of him, and a similar proportion do not know enough about him to say anything.
Walz, on the other hand, is more popular. About 3 in 10 voters have a negative opinion of Walz, while about 4 in 10 have a positive opinion and about 3 in 10 don’t know enough to say.
That disparity in popularity extends to the candidates’ bases. About 7 in 10 Democratic voters have a favorable opinion of Walz, compared to about 6 in 10 Republican voters who have a favorable opinion of Vance.
Democratic candidates tend to get more support from women, while Republicans do better among men. That gap is clearly visible in the approval ratings of Trump and Harris — but Walz is more popular than Vance among both men and women.
About 4 in 10 male and female voters have a positive view of Walz, while about 3 in 10 men and about a quarter of women have a positive view of Vance.
Walz also has a popularity advantage over Vance among voters over 60. Half of voters in this group are fairly to very positive about Walz, while about 3 in 10 have a similar opinion of Vance.
Despite his leverage over Vance in some areas, there are also key Democratic groups where Walz still has work to do. About three-quarters of black adults have a positive view of Harris, while about half say the same of Walz. She is also viewed more positively by women; about 3 in 10 women don’t know enough about Walz to have an opinion.
Overall, however, neither vice presidential candidate outranks Harris or Trump among key demographic groups, and they remain less well-known than the presidential candidates even among groups that traditionally make up both parties’ bases. For example, about a quarter of white voters without a college degree don’t know enough about Vance, and about 4 in 10 voters between the ages of 18 and 29 have no opinion about Walz.
This means that their popularity may continue to change as their national exposure increases.
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The poll of 1,771 registered voters was conducted Sept. 12-16, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for registered voters is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.