Mark Penn Polls

Presidential pollster Mark Penn shares findings from a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, fielded among 2,527 registered voters between Jan. 27-29, 2020.

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Presidential pollster Mark Penn shares findings from a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, fielded among 2,527 registered voters between Jan. 27-29, 2020.

Download: http://bit.ly/hhp_feb

Register: https://harvardharrispoll.com/

Follow: https://twitter.com/Mark_Penn_Polls

President Trump’s approval rating is hovering near its all-time high at 46% on the strength of voter optimism about the economy. But his weakness among female voters has him trailing Democratic rivals in a hypothetical match-up early in his reelection bid. Our poll found 45 percent of voters say they will definitely or probably vote for a generic Democrat compared with 39 percent who said they will definitely or probably vote for Trump. Still, this number represents a 4-point move in Trump’s favor from where he was in July.

When pitting Trump’s bog of issues against a progressive democratic platform, Trump’s platform wins 59% to 41%. When pitting a centrist democrat platform against Trump’s, the centrist platform ekes through 52% to 47%. Taken together, there’s plenty of room for campaigns to find (and fight through) a path to victory.

The economy is Trump’s greatest asset at the moment, with 60 percent approving of the job he’s doing on jobs and economic growth. Fifty-one percent of voters say the economy is on the right track, including 60 percent of men and 44 percent of women. Forty-six percent of independents say the economy is on the right track, suggesting there is still room for improvement in both messaging and substance. Seventy-four percent of voters described the economy as strong or very strong, and a plurality, 47 percent, believe the economy will stay the same over the next six months. Thirty-one percent predict a recession, and 22 percent say they believe the economy will improve.

Forty percent of voters said their personal financial situation is improving, and 36 percent said they’re doing just as well. Only 20 percent said they are worse off than before.

Trump’s prospects have surprisingly increased throughout impeachment. Despite the senate trial, which has the attention of 67% of voters, sentiment on impeachment has not changed month-over-month with 44% saying impeach and remove from office, 15% wanting Trump to be censured by Congress, and 40% who say no action should be taken. 81% of voters think that the Senate is unlikely to vote to remove president Trump from office. And only a plurality of voters think Trump’s actions constitute impeachable offenses – respectively, 40% think Trump asking the Ukrainians to look into the Bidens is an impeachable offense and only 33% think Trump exerting executive privilege on his advisors amounts to the same. The rest either believe the actions were misconduct but not impeachable, or within presidential authority.

Lastly, Trump looks to be having a foreign policy moment: majorities of voters approve of the strike that killed Iranian General Soleimani, even before finding out that he was placed on the terrorist list by the Obama administration and responsible for the deaths of American military personnel abroad, information which increases support for the action. 67% believe that the strike by President Trump was justified and 58% say Trump was deliberate and calculated in his handling of the crisis. And 68% think the administrations phase 1 trade deal with China benefits the US over China, and the deal makes 54% more likely to support administration trade policies.

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A new Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll, conducted among 2,010 registered voters between December 27-29, 2019, sheds light on the public's understanding of the ongoing impeachment fight, the Horowitz Report, the Hunter Biden controversy, the ban on flavored vaping products and takes stock of voters' real concerns as we enter into 2020.

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The Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll is conducted by The Harris Poll online within the United States every monthly and captures the responses of over 2,000 registered voters. The results reflect a nationally representative sample. Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, and education where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

The Co-Directors of the Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll are:

- Stephen D. Ansolabehere – Professor of Government & Director, Center for American Political Studies, Harvard University

- Mark J. Penn – Visiting Lecturer, Harvard University & Managing Partner, The Stagwell Group

- Dritan Nesho – Fellow, Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science & CEO of HarrisX

Thank you for listening to the late December Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll Report and thank you to iHeart, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Radio.com, Google, and many other platforms that are now carrying our show. Make sure to follow us at @Marc_Penn_Polls on Twitter. And importantly, sign up to receive updates at the harvardharrispoll.com. Remember, we give you every question, we give you every cross tab. If you don't like my analysis, go ahead and write your own because we give you every piece of information behind every question in every poll.

In late December, December 27th to 29th, we interviewed 2010 registered voters by the Harris Poll. The findings also include a flash poll among 1273 registered voters conducted December 30th to 31st. These polls were conducted just before the raid on the Iranian general. If that's changed things, we won't know that until the next poll. But until then, I think that you see a pretty good picture of how America was feeling during this holiday period.

Let's take a look at Trump's approval. Obviously, President Trump was impeached just before the holidays. That impeachment has been held up at this point, not yet sent over to the Senate. The impact of impeachment on his job approval was nothing. He was at 47% in November. In late December, he is at 47%. 47% is among some of the higher ratings. He's typically been 44, 45. He's gotten as high as 48. He has not crossed into majority approval since he took office. And the trend here is from June, when he was at 44, to two months at 45, two months at 46 and now two months at 47% approval. Disapproval mirrors it. It's at 53%. Again, down from 56 in May or June; 55, 54 and now 53.

We go a little deeper and look at the president's approval by some of the various issue areas. His lowest approval has always been administering the government, 44%, basically unchanged over a long period of time. Foreign affairs, 46%; immigration, 48%; fighting terrorism, 55; stimulating jobs, 59; the economy, 60. The two areas that have moved over time, the economy and stimulating jobs. The others have been relatively stable overtime.

Let's also look at a subject that the news media has oftentimes been reluctant to fully cover, which is Hunter Biden and his serving as a director on Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company. We've asked a few questions over the last couple of months. We've done a pretty thorough battery here, because given that what you see in most stories is that there's no evidence of corruption, I wanted to see here, what did the American people really think about this. And we asked them, have you heard anything about Hunter Biden serving as a director of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company? 66% of the public, still 34% who hadn't heard?

We asked them, what do you think the compensation was? Nothing 14%; a few thousand dollars 14%; about a hundred thousand dollars 31%; 42% said more than a million. In fact, it was considerably more than a million. Even our own question previously didn't have the correct number as high as the compensation actually was. So most people, 68%, don't understand the level of compensation.

Do you think that Hunter Biden was qualified or unqualified for this job? 59% say unqualified. Do you think that Hunter Biden got the job because of his father's position or his own merit? 72% believe that he got this job because of his father's position; 28% own merit. So while people are a little fuzzy about how much money was involved, they are pretty clear that he is accepting a job here based on the job that his father had. Unquestionable clear public opinion.

Hunter Biden received millions for services as a director of Burisma, while his father, Vice President, was in charge of Ukraine policy. Do you think this is evidence of corruption or not evidence of corruption? 54% say just his receiving those millions of dollars given his father's position is evidence of corruption. The interesting thing here is that many stories say there's no evidence of any corruption. Most voters would disagree with that position. It doesn't mean that that's definitive evidence or proof that there is corruption. Quite the contrary. That's not what the question asks. And many of these statements also that appear in news stories, don't say, Hey, there's some evidence, but nothing definitive. They say there's no evidence. Most people would think that millions of dollars that went to somebody's son for a job that they say they weren't qualified for at least is evidence worthy of investigation. And do you think this merits further investigation or does not merit further investigation? 58% say merits further investigation; 42% does not merit investigation.

Interesting. At the time that he was Vice President, Joe Biden demanded that the Ukraine fire its Chief Prosecutor or the United States would withhold $1 billion of aid to Ukraine. Was this action appropriate or inappropriate? Remember, most people thought that president Trump's actions inappropriate. 64% also thought that this action by Vice President Joe Biden was inappropriate. 64% inappropriate, 34% appropriate.

Do you think Joe Biden holding up Ukraine aid at the time his son was receiving millions from Ukrainian company is just a conspiracy theory to be dismissed or a serious matter to be investigated further? 57% say it's a serious matter; 43% say it's a conspiracy theory to be dismissed. Again, I'm not suggesting and nor did these questions suggest in any way, guilt or innocence. What they suggest is that these contracts do provide a level of smoke that people say should properly be investigated and shouldn't be dismissed as something not to really look at or get a good explanation on. Doesn't mean there isn't a good explanation; doesn't mean that they were not absolutely correct in everything that was done, but this is what public opinion is and how it stands when they're asked these questions specifically about these arrangements.

A subject that's been in the news lately, vaping. We took a quick look at public opinion on vaping and on the controversy created by flavored vaping that spread like wildfire among teens.

Do you think that electronic vaping is generally a safe substitute for tobacco or are there significant health concerns around vaping? 77% say there are significant health concerns, only 23% think that it is generally a safe substitute. Now I have no idea whether it is or isn't, but public opinion has clearly lined up as pretty hostile to the overall concept of vaping as a substitute. They don't see it as having been proven safe, which is why when I asked the straightforward question, "Should vaping be allowed for adults?" That was split 50/50, 50% yes, 50% no. So, they're concerned about vaping even with adults, let alone kids.

Should vaping be allowed for kids under 18? Well, it's a long time since I have seen any poll question on any topic being 95/5. 95% say it should not be allowed for kids under 18 and the 5% is quite an outlier. Should manufacturers be allowed to sell vaping with candy type flavors or should such flavors be banned? Well, given the generally hostile opinion that people have about vaping, not a surprise that 72% say that these types of candy flavors should be banned, 28% say allowed to sell vaping with candy type flavors. Some people say that flavored vaping naturally attracts a lot of kids, and so it needs to be banned. Others say that flavored vaping should not be banned because many adults like the flavors as well, which is closer to review, ban them 74%, 26% not banned.

So I think you really see in a quick overview here that I think where the administration came out, banning the flavors but allowing adults to continue to use menthol and the tobacco flavored ones is pretty consistent with public opinion, but that the public is really going to want a real safety watch even for adults on whether or not this is a genuinely safe and useful substitute at all. But no question about the powerful public opinion, and it's even stronger among women than men, a powerful public opinion view that these candy type flavors should not be on the shelves because of their attractiveness to children.

Now, let's look at the Inspector General's report on the FBI and the Carter Page warrants. This topic is on almost the other side of what people see as important investigations. Only 22% were very familiar with this Inspector General's report. It's a pretty low number, considering the importance of the report. 46% said they were somewhat familiar. To the best of your knowledge, do you think the DOJ inspector report absolves the FBI of any mistakes or does it reveal patterns of violations of process and misjudgment?

We tried to kind of see what does the American public think this report says? They don't seem to know it very well, but has the general message about the report gotten through? In some areas, yes. Now, 39% very familiar number in the rest of the polls, say that it absolves the FBI. Remember, former FBI Director James Comey wrote an editorial basically saying... Or an op-ed, saying that he was vindicated by this report and has had many TV reappearances saying precisely that. 39% say that. 61% say it reveals patterns of violations and misjudgment.

Interesting. Do you think the DOJ Inspector General report says that the Christopher Steele dossier alleging Trump-Russia collusion was found to be mostly truthful or mostly false and unverified? Now, this report is pretty clear that this dossier did not have the kind of verified information that could really support a warrant for Carter Page. And yet, 53% believe that the DOJ Inspector General found that the dossier was mostly truthful. Only 47% said it was mostly false and unverified. So it says that the issue of Trump-Russia collusion is not dead at all. It still animates a considerable amount of the electorate.

And we asked, "Without talking about the Inspector General report, do you think the Steele dossier alleging Trump-Russia collusion is mostly truthful or mostly false and unverified?" 50% say mostly truthful. This is an incredible finding, given that there've been two Senate reports, the Mueller Investigation, and now the Inspector General's report, that none of this information was found to be verified. And certainly the characterization of mostly truthful is not something that any of these investigations would now apply to those general reports and yet, 50% of America remains convinced that it is a mostly truthful document.

Do you think the DOJ Inspector General says there was justification for surveillance of Carter Page by the FBI or no such justification existed for the surveillance of Carter page? 54% said justification existed. Now, technically the report didn't say that. Technically, the reports said there was justification for opening an investigation. The question of surveilling Carter Page is quite different. That's where the report was quite negative, particularly about the use of the dossier.

Do you think there was justification then, I ask without the report, justification for the surveillance of Carter Page by the FBI? 52% believe that the justification existed. Again, a lot of this reflects the way this report was covered. Do you think the DOJ Inspector General report says there was no political bias in the investigation, that there was political bias, or that he couldn't find documented evidence of political bias? 28% say no, 41%, another familiar number, say there was, and 32% say he couldn't find documented evidence.

If we asked them, "Do you think that there was political bias in the investigation or no political bias outright?" 44% say there was no political bias. 56% say there was political bias. So the American public believes there was political bias, right? They got that the report didn't really take a position on the political bias but half the public does think that the dossier is a mostly-truthful document.

Now let's take a look about the questions on impeachment. We've run a question for a very long period of time now. Do you think that for his actions President Trump should be impeached and removed from office, censured by Congress, or no action should be taken? 45% say impeach and remove, 15% censured, 40% no action. So if you look at that 55% the way I would look at it, say censure or no action, said censure is a mild resolution. 45% look for removal. Most of the time, that has run around 39%. Once the Ukraine situation occurred, and given the actual impeachment by the house, that went up five or six points. It went down to 43 I think. And now it's come back up to 45. It's not a majority. It's within the zone of partisanship. And as I said, 55%, so the indictment by the house did not significantly move opinion. But they do have, American public, has significant concerns about what happened with the Ukraine, and I think that comes through in the questions.

36% say they were paying very close attention to this, 76% say that somewhat or very, meaning most of the has been following what's going on here, about three-quarters. Do you think that they provide compelling evidence for impeaching Trump or not? 54% say they're compelling evidence, 46% not presented compelling evidence. Do you think President Trump asking the president of Ukraine to investigate whether the Bidens were involved represents treason, bribery or high crimes and ... again, 55% say that ... and remember when we asked them, do you want to remove him for office, actually only 45% say that. So there's a fair number of people here who think what the president did is wrong but wouldn't remove him from office. That's the 15% who say censure is the right way to go, the swing voters in America. It's very clear, even on this issue, that there's a swing vote, typically a 15 or sometimes as high as 20%, but you see it quite clearly.

Do you think Trump asking the president of Ukraine to investigate whether the Bidens were involved in corruption and then temporarily withholding foreign aid until they accepted represents treason, bribery or other high crimes? Again, 56% say that. So they do condemn the president's behavior, but a majority says, don't take them out of office for that. Then we said, which is closer to your viewpoint, asking Ukraine to open investigation for the Bidens, given that Hunter Biden and his partners received hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees advising Ukrainian energy company without any energy experiences is fair request? Or asking the Ukraine to investigate the Bidens as tantamount to asking a foreign country to intervene in the US election, given the Joe Biden's a candidate for president?

Now, interestingly, that question now split right down the middle and at 50/50. Then which is closer to your view, asking the Ukraine to open an investigation of the Bidens, that former vice president Joe Biden is on the record saying he withheld $1 billion in aid until it removed a general prosecutor, or asking the Ukraine of Biden's is tantamount asking a foreign country to intervene in the US election? That went 52%. it was a fair request.

So within the country, where 45% says remove him from office up from 39, 15% says censure. Within that, there's still an argument depending upon how these charges are presented and how they are defended that moves it back and forth within the context here of the 55 to 45% range. Do you support or oppose the house of representatives voting to impeach Trump? People were fine with the house of representatives voting. 56% say they were fine with them voting on it. 44% opposed them voting. I think that question doesn't really ... it's a slightly unclear question because we ask them whether they support or opposing the vote as opposed to support or oppose the impeachment itself. It says, "Look, there's a fair idea that they would vote."

"Let's turn to the Democratic horse race. Some changes there and I think it's been reflected in a lot of the fundraising numbers that you've seen. Joe Biden continues to lead the pack in our poll. We look at Democrats nationwide and he's polling just a little over 30%. Bernie Sanders is now and has been number two at very close to 20%. Elizabeth Warren now in the low teens. Michael Bloomberg coming in at around 7%, tied with mayor Pete. Andrew Yang scoring in there about four or five and so the field is the field. I think for a long time we talked about new people possibly getting in, dissatisfaction with the field. 47% of the Democratic primary voters now say that they are committed to their choice.

More and more, this is looking like a Biden, Sanders race. We know that the Warren voters would take Sanders as a second choice. I think a lot of Bloomberg voters would take Biden as a second choice. I think Mayor Pete's votes would probably split going equally to those two or three candidates. But if this comes down to a broker convention, it will be a convention in which the moderates and the left each look to try to get a majority of delegates. In an election right now, that could very well be indecisive, particularly if Sanders and Warren split the more left-leaning vote, and particularly if the moderates are split among Biden, Bloomberg, and Mayor Pete.

Donald Trump's reelection, still at 39%. Would people prefer a Republican candidate or a Democratic candidate? 43 Democrat, 39 Republican, 10% undecided, still 8% saying they're going to vote for an independent or other candidate. We don't know who those independent slates will be and whether they will draw more from the Democrats or more from the Republicans. My sense last time was that Johnson drew more from the Republicans and Stein drew almost exclusively from the Democrats. People forget the Johnson had about 6% so that probably the Republicans were hurt more than the Democrats of the independent candidates. We'll see what the slate is this year.

Do you like or dislike Donald Trump personally? He's at 30%. he's been at 31 or 30% the last few months. He was as low as 26%, so this is a very slight improvement. But again, when you look at it, there's 58% that don't like him personally and 60% who approve of the job that he's doing on the economy. And this duality here between not liking President Trump but liking his economic policy is what creates a tremendous number of cross pressured voters. And that means there can be an incredible amount of volatility in the outcome of this race.

Now we looked at two head to heads, not among people, but among platforms. So we compared a presidential candidate who stands for lower taxes, reduce government regulations, strengthening our military and strengthening our border to reduce illegal immigrants, standing up more to China and Iran and seeking better trade deals for the US. Against a second issue plank, a presidential candidate who stands for the green new deal and climate change, Medicare for all, free college tuition, opening our borders to many more immigrants and raising taxes to pay for those programs. That would generally be characterized as the kinds of positions that Warren or Sanders might take. When you look at those issue groupings, 61% said they would go for the lower tax, lower government candidate or platform over the green new deal, Medicare for all, free college platform which got 39%. that is a really wide gap. That's why the contrast on personalities and values is a lot closer than the conflict between at least those two candidates and where they are on issues."

Thank you for listening to the late December Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll Report and thank you to iHeart, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Radio.com, Google, and many other platforms that are now carrying our show. Make sure to follow us at @Marc_Penn_Polls on Twitter. And importantly, sign up to receive updates at the harvardharrispoll.com. Remember, we give you every question, we give you every cross tab. If you don't like my analysis, go ahead and write your own because we give you every piece of information behind every question in every poll.

In late December, December 27th to 29th, we interviewed 2010 registered voters by the Harris Poll. The findings also include a flash poll among 1273 registered voters conducted December 30th to 31st. These polls were conducted just before the raid on the Iranian general. If that's changed things, we won't know that until the next poll. But until then, I think that you see a pretty good picture of how America was feeling during this holiday period.

Let's take a look at Trump's approval. Obviously, President Trump was impeached just before the holidays. That impeachment has been held up at this point, not yet sent over to the Senate. The impact of impeachment on his job approval was nothing. He was at 47% in November. In late December, he is at 47%. 47% is among some of the higher ratings. He's typically been 44, 45. He's gotten as high as 48. He has not crossed into majority approval since he took office. And the trend here is from June, when he was at 44, to two months at 45, two months at 46 and now two months at 47% approval. Disapproval mirrors it. It's at 53%. Again, down from 56 in May or June; 55, 54 and now 53.

We go a little deeper and look at the president's approval by some of the various issue areas. His lowest approval has always been administering the government, 44%, basically unchanged over a long period of time. Foreign affairs, 46%; immigration, 48%; fighting terrorism, 55; stimulating jobs, 59; the economy, 60. The two areas that have moved over time, the economy and stimulating jobs. The others have been relatively stable overtime.

Is the country on the right track or the wrong track? Not a lot of change here recently. We're at 39% right track. Again, higher numbers. We started at 34%. We're still at 53% wrong track, not a lot of movement here. Again, we were as low as 29 if you go back to October of 17 when the country felt that there was tremendous gridlock, in particular the healthcare issue. These are slightly better numbers, but still it's been a long time since most Americans think their country is on the right track.

Now, where is there change and significant change? We asked the question, "Do you think the American economy is on the right track or the wrong track?" Right track is now 51%, wrong track is 36%. We've had a spread this big only once before, it was December of 17. You see a very clear pattern here. Remember that just a few months ago, let's call it four or five, six months ago, the Fed was raising interest rates. Economists were predicting a recession. Right track economy actually dipped below wrong track again over the summer. It was 46% wrong track, 43% right track.

Today, there's been a consistent improvement in attitudes towards how the economy's doing across almost all demographics. It is now 51% right track on the economy, 36% wrong track. Americans may not be happy with the direction of their country, but they are happy with the direction of the economy.

A slightly different question shows the same pattern. How strong do you think the US economy is today? And those people who think that it's strong is now up to 75%. That is a record in our poll. It was as high as 74% before all the talk about recession the previous spring. It started out at 61%. There is no question about that, a very, very significant movement. And for the first time, those who say that the economy is weak is down to 25%.

A new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll asked 1,859 voters about their media consumption, how and where they get their news, which social platforms they use and more. DOWNLOAD full report: bit.ly/HHPoll_Download_12