Roanoke College Poll: Harris holds slim lead over Trump in Virginia

Lead within margin of error; Cao trails Kaine in race for Senate seat

Vice President Kamala Harris holds a slim three-point lead over former President Donald Trump (47%-44%) in a head-to-head matchup in Virginia and a similar lead (45%-42%) when other candidates are included, according to the Roanoke College Poll. Both are within the poll’s margin of error. In the U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine leads his Republican challenger, Hung Cao, (49%-38%). The Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College interviewed 691 likely voters in Virginia between Aug. 12 and 16, 2024. The survey has a weighted margin of error of 4.5%.

2024 General Election 

Although only 2% of likely voters say they are undecided (in the multi-candidate question), another 8% (two-way) to 13% (six-way) say they will vote for someone other than Harris or Trump (Robert Kennedy Jr. 6%; Cornel West 2%; Chase Oliver 2%; Jill Stein 0%; Other 3% in the six-way race). The previous poll in May showed Trump and President Joe Biden tied. This is the first Roanoke College Poll including Harris as the Democratic party candidate. 

Nearly four in five (79%) likely voters are very certain of their vote choice, and another 18% are somewhat certain. More than half (60%) are very enthusiastic about voting, and 25% are somewhat enthusiastic. The economy dominates among the most important issues, being cited by 48% of respondents. Abortion (16%) and immigration (15%) were chosen more frequently than foreign affairs (6%) and crime (4%). Two-thirds (68%) of likely voters plan to vote on Election Day, while 31% say they will vote earlier.

Biden’s departure from the race impacted the campaign and voters’ perceptions. When asked in the new poll about what their vote plans had been prior to Biden’s withdrawal, respondents gave Trump a six-point lead (although the candidates were tied in the May poll). Some who had planned to vote for other candidates appear to have changed their minds, and 3% said they had not planned to vote in a Biden-Trump matchup. 

Likely voters generally perceive Harris to be more liberal than Biden (45%), with only 16% thinking she is more conservative. Half of the respondents (50%) think Trump’s immediate response to the attempted assassination showed toughness; nearly as many (44%) see it as an attempt to gain votes. 

The large majority of respondents do not think a candidate’s physical characteristics are important (64% not at all; 18% not very important), but about one in five think it is important that a candidate looks like them (8% very important; 10% somewhat important). 

A bare majority (51%) thinks Trump is a threat to democracy. Slightly fewer (47%) see the Democratic party process of replacing Biden with Harris as such a threat. Slightly more likely voters (56%) see Trump as strong enough to deal with adversaries of the United States, such as Vladimir Putin, while less than half (49%) say the same about Harris.

Just under one-third of respondents (29%) think criticisms of Harris are based more on her race and gender, while more think they are based on either policy differences (35%) or pure politics (35%). More than half (58%) think that criticisms of Trump are due to the large number of people who dislike him. 

Regarding choices for vice president, likely voters are less than thrilled, as 44% are either dissatisfied or angry with the choice of Tim Walz (30% dissatisfied; 14% angry), and J.D. Vance fares even worse (32% dissatisfied; 18% angry). 

Job Approval, Favorable/Unfavorable, and Directions of Virginia and Nation

Evaluations of the direction of the nation and the commonwealth remain stable. A small majority (51%) thinks that Virginia is headed in the right direction, while 71% think the country is on the wrong track. Job approval for President Biden (35%) and Congress (20%) are almost identical to the May poll. Gov. Glenn Youngkin saw his job approval rise to 59%, the highest in his term thus far. Biden’s 62% disapproval rating is the highest during his time in office. 

Favorability ratings for federal officials and institutions generally continue in negative numbers with Trump (40% favorable/57% unfavorable) and Biden (37% favorable/61% unfavorable) leading in the wrong way. Harris is also underwater at 43% favorable/53% unfavorable, just slightly better than Trump. Both vice presidential candidates are also viewed negatively with Walz sitting at 34% favorable/51% unfavorable and Vance at 32% favorable/55% unfavorable. The U.S. Supreme Court fares slightly better with 45% favorable and 52% unfavorable. Kaine breaks the negative trend with 50% favorable (tying his all-time high from six years ago) and 41% unfavorable. Youngkin’s ratings rose to 54% favorable (his best rating during his term) and 40% unfavorable.

Except for the direction of Virginia, each of these ratings is the result of major perception gaps between Democrats and Republicans. Overall, Democrats think the country is headed in the right direction, approve of the job being done by Biden, disapprove of Youngkin’s performance, and are negative regarding Congress. Republicans are the opposite of each, other than being even more negative toward Congress. The same is true for favorability ratings of public figures and the Supreme Court. Independents are typically between the two, sometimes closer to Republicans and sometimes closer to Democrats.

Analysis

“The switch from Biden to Harris made a difference in Virginia, but perhaps not as great as some may have thought,” said Dr. Harry Wilson, senior political analyst for IPOR and professor emeritus of political science at Roanoke College. “The news for Harris is certainly better than it was for Biden, but her three-point lead is still within the margin of error.” 

“Both candidates are polling very well within their party, and there is a miniscule number of undecided voters. The party bases remain important, as always. The number who say they will vote third party is declining, and those voters may well determine who wins in Virginia.”

“One big takeaway continues to be the chasm between the views of Democrats and Republicans. None of it is new, but it is remarkable that partisans interpret everything through different lenses.” 

Methodology 

Interviewing for the Roanoke College Poll was conducted by the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, between Aug. 12 and 16, 2024. Of 691 completed interviews, 331 came from random telephone calls and texts to Virginians and 360 were drawn from a proprietary online panel of Virginians. Interviews were conducted in English. Cellphones constituted 69% of the completed phone interviews. 

The landline sampling frame was created by random digit dialing, with area code and exchange coverage made proportional to population density in Virginia, and services from iconectiv, LLC used to remove numbers that had been ported to a cellular provider. Marketing Systems Group provided the cellular dialing frame using a combination of random digit dialing and randomly selected numbers with a Virginia billing zip code to ensure representation. Lucid, LLC facilitated the online panel with completion time and attention check questions used for quality control. IPOR regularly uses bootstrap analysis of post-survey results to control for quality within the blended frames.

Questions answered by the sample of 691 respondents are subject to a weighted error margin (including design effect) of plus or minus 4.5% at a confidence level of 95%. This means that in 95 out of 100 samples such as the one used here, the results should be at most 4.5 percentage points above or below the figure obtained by interviewing all Virginians with a home telephone or a cellphone. Where the results of subgroups are reported, the error margin is higher. 

Quotas were used to ensure that different regions of the commonwealth were proportionately represented. The data were statistically weighted for gender, race and age. Weighting was done to match the 2020 Virginia Exit Poll. The design effect was 1.457. 

A copy of the questions and all toplines may be found here.  

More information about the Roanoke College Poll may be obtained by contacting Dr. Harry Wilson, senior political analyst for the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research, at wilson@roanoke.edu or 540-375-2051, or the Roanoke College Public Relations Office at rcnews@roanoke.edu or 540-375-2282.  

roanoke.edu/IPOR