Americans will finish voting in the 2024 presidential election on November 5, and YouGov's polling and modeling find the American electorate is closely divided between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
But that doesn't mean individual subgroups of Americans are all equally divided. YouGov's extensive compilation of polls from recent months captures the expected and unexpected ways that Americans are split over the 2024 election. Harris does better with atheists, renters, and people with college degrees — and also with people who like to see movies in theaters or to sleep in. Trump does better with people who are Protestant, married, or live in rural areas — and also with people who have been in a car crash or think they've seen a UFO.
The data in this article has been compiled from multiple polls conducted over the period from August 26 to October 30 — a period in which the overall shape of the race has, at times, shifted. As such, all numbers reflect the relative lean of that group at the time they were polled, compared to all registered voters in the same poll. For example, our September 27 - 30 poll found Harris ahead of Trump by 3 percentage points. That poll also found that registered voters who know an employee of the federal government favored Harris by 8 points. People who know federal employees are therefore reported here as being 5 points more pro-Harris than the electorate.
Many of the categories analyzed here are closely correlated with other traits. For example, people who are married are more likely to have children under 18 than are people who are not married. We have not attempted to account for the ways that different questions relate to each other, and make no claims about the degree to which any particular trait causes support for Harris or for Trump.
First, here are some relatively standard demographic breakdowns of relative Trump and Harris support:
But YouGov also regularly polls more offbeat questions unrelated to politics. We gathered 25 of the more interesting questions from the past few months and looked at how they relate to relative Trump and Harris support:
As a bonus breakdown, we did the same exercise for a September 24 - 27 survey asking Americans about a selection of Best Picture winners and nominees. Below are how Americans who say they "love" the following movies lean in the the presidential election, relative to all registered voters:
— Carl Bialik and Taylor Orth contributed to this article
See the results for the polls in this article:
- The October 26 - 29, 2024 Economist/YouGov Poll
- August 26 - 30, 2024 YouGov Poll
- September 6 - 9, 2024 YouGov Poll
- September 17 - 20, 2024 YouGov Poll
- September 24 - 27, 2024 YouGov Poll
- October 4 - 6, 2024 YouGov Poll
- October 9 - 12, 2024 YouGov Poll
- October 10 - 14, 2024 YouGov Poll
- October 11 - 14, 2024 YouGov Poll
- October 28 - 30, 2024 YouGov Poll
Methodology: The October 26 - 29, 2024 Economist/YouGov Poll was conducted among 1,587 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to November 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.
The other polls included in this article each were conducted online among more than 1,000 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of adult U.S. citizens. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to November 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample for each poll is approximately 4%.
Image: Getty ( Chip Somodevilla / Staff)
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