hot girl summer -> frantic election fall

Vibe check ⤵️

Have you ever been on a work call and someone starts talking to their roommate about how this meeting could have been an email — until the host jumps in and mutes their mic?

Picture that but instead of a Zoom, it’s a debate stage, instead of a meeting host, it’s the moderators, and instead of a coworker making an embarrassing mistake, it’s Donald Trump going on nonsensical and probably racist rants. And you’ve got a good picture of what next Tuesday is going to look like.

Ahead of the first debate between Kamala Harris and Trump, we polled voters to get a sense of how they view the candidates as campaign season kicks into high gear.

As Harris and Trump prepare for their first debate — and in fact, their first time ever meeting face-to-face — Harris is viewed favorably by likely voters by a +5-point margin, while her running mate, Tim Walz, is viewed favorably by a +7-point margin. Meanwhile, both Trump and vice presidential nominee JD Vance are underwater among likely voters, with -11-point net favorability for Trump and -10-point net favorability for Vance.

And while a plurality of voters are hearing positive things about Harris and Walz, a majority are hearing negative things about Trump and a plurality are hearing negative things about Vance. Once you learn how to order a donut like a normal person, JD, we’re sure those numbers will turn right around.

The poll also finds that the proposals in Harris’ new economic agenda are broadly popular, with majority support for each of the economic policies we tested. The most popular proposal is capping out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 a month for all Americans, supported by 83% of likely voters overall. But if she adds price controls on resale Chappell Roan tickets to her economic plan, we imagine that would probably test at 100% support.

Read the full poll here.

Here are some other highlights from DFP this week:

It’s getting hot in here!

We’re not sure why you can’t wear white after Labor Day, but who doesn’t hate needing to wear a tank top in September? The next time you look wistfully at your cable knit sweater tucked away in your drawer while dreaming of fall, you can thank your least favorite oil and gas company for the fact that it’s still 85 degrees during football season.

According to our new poll with Climate Power En Acción, Latino voters really do blame oil and gas companies most for extreme weather like heat waves.

Sixty-five percent of Latino voters agree that the U.S. needs a president committed to addressing both climate change and extreme weather, including 53% of Latino voters in battleground states.

In contrast, just 30% agree with a statement saying that we need a president who is committed to expanding oil and gas production and pushing back against a climate alarmist policy agenda.

No matter who you are or where you live, every person deserves to enjoy hot apple cider without having to worry about the ever-present threat of climate change and extreme weather.

Read the full poll here.

Swiper, no swiping!

It turns out that “food inflation” refers to grocers and food manufacturers jacking up the price of food, and not when we decide to get fries for the table and an extra round of drinks when out for dinner with our friends. Our mistake.

Voters’ top concern this election is, by a large margin, “the economy, jobs, and inflation” — in particular, inflation and the cost of food and groceries. Since becoming the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris has been laser focused on taking on corporate price gouging as a way to lower costs and bring down inflation.

New Data for Progress polling shows that this approach is what voters want to see — among various policies to address inflation, taking on corporate price gouging is the approach that voters think would be most effective at lowering costs. Specifically, the top three policies that voters believe would lower costs are passing a law against corporate price gouging (56%), cracking down on junk fees (55%), and capping drug costs (53%).

Less than a third of voters believe that deporting immigrants (31%), cutting corporate taxes (24%), cutting taxes on the wealthy (20%), or enacting new tariffs (19%) would lower costs.

However, while 40% of voters say they’ve heard “a lot” about the Biden-Harris administration capping insulin costs, less than 1 in 5 have heard “a lot” about other policies to cut costs and crack down on corporate price gouging.

Let’s boost those numbers up!! We don’t mean to alarm you, but there are less than 60 days until the election — so if you’re not lighting up your group chats with news about the Biden-Harris administration cracking down on junk fees and regulating big landlords, what are you waiting for? Are your travel plans that will never actually happen really more important?

Read the full poll here.

DFP In The News