FAU community reacts to university’s new poll showing Harris leading Trump
The national poll revealed that Vice President Kamala Harris has a 5% lead over former President Donald Trump.
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Elisabeth Gaffney, Editor-at-Large
September 20, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris is narrowly leading former President Donald Trump in the race to the White House 50% to 45%, according to a new national poll from Florida Atlantic University’s Political Communication and Public Opinion Research (PolCom) Lab and Mainstreet Research USA.
The conclusions from this poll, in particular, were drawn from 820 registered voters across the U.S. in a 24-hour window from Sept. 16 to 17, according to university spokesperson Joshua Glanzer’s press release.
The poll also found that 54% of voters predicted Harris would win the United States presidential election over Trump’s 46%.
Carol Mills, the director of the School of Communications and Multimedia Studies and the co-director of FAU’s PolCom Lab, explained the polling process in an interview with the University Press.
She said that the staff, faculty and one graduate student who works in the lab chose the most relevant issues and questions to ask a random sample of registered voters. Then, they had Mainstreet Research USA conduct the polls through a phone-based voice recognition service called “Interactive Voice Response” and an online survey.
Mills said younger voters’ attitudes are shifting, largely due to dependence on social media.
“What we’re seeing is that [dependence] gets mirrored in a larger portion of younger people now voting for Republicans and Republican tickets,” said Mills. “Whereas interestingly, older voters are leading more Democratic, so over the age of 60. So it’s kind of a flip in the traditional script of younger voters being Democrats and older voters being Republican.”
FAU’s poll reflects the phenomenon Mills described, showing that Trump is maintaining a 50% lead over younger voters from ages 18 to 49, while Harris is leading with older voters by 54%.
However, Harris’ campaign has brought about a large turnaround in appealing to younger voters.
The UP conducted two Instagram story polls to gauge how the FAU community felt about each candidate – the first on June 27, right after President Joe Biden and Trump’s debate, and the second on Sept. 19, over one week after Harris and Trump’s debate.
Out of 362 votes in the June 27 poll, Trump led with 30%, Biden falling behind at 14%. A majority of students, 57%, voted for neither.
After 20 hours and out of 210 votes, the Sept. 19 poll found that Harris seems to be garnering more FAU support than Trump, this time with 57% over his 28%. Only 15% said they would vote for neither.
Nick Ostheimer, campus organizer for FAU’s College Democrats chapter, believes Harris is doing a good job making sure young voters feel represented.
“But when it comes to social media presence and the endorsement of candidates, like Taylor Swift, this type of campaign from Harris motivates a lot of people to vote who otherwise wouldn’t,” he said.
However, as FAU political science alumnus Joao Brandao points out, “Polls can say one thing, and how elections turn out is a whole different thing.”
Ostheimer believes the polls will continue to trend in support of Harris, but that people should take the results with a grain of salt. Both he and Brandao point to Hillary Clinton’s early lead in polls against Trump in the 2016 election, which turned out in Trump’s favor.
“People have started listening a lot less to polls because there are a lot more methodological errors that are unavoidable,” Ostheimer said.
Nick Coyte, FAU chapter president of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, shares a similar sentiment.
“I can’t speak to the validity of any poll. However, I can speak on the sentiments of my club… People are in a state of real distrust, and it’s no wonder,” Coyte wrote in a statement.
Kevin Wagner, a political science professor and co-director of the PolCom Lab, told Glanzer that the election outcome “may hinge on which campaign can better mobilize their core supporters and appeal to undecided voters.”
Brandao believes that with such slim margins, it’s too close to call which candidate will come out on top.
“This election is unlike anything that we’ve seen before, and it’s only going to get crazier the closer it gets to election day,” said Brandao.
Sephora Charles, a University Press Staff Writer, contributed to reporting on this article.
Elisabeth Gaffney is the Editor-at-Large for the University Press. For more information on this article or others, you can reach Elisabeth at elisabethgaffreports@gmail.com or DM her on Instagram @elisabethgaff.
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