The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: Public Opinion on the Economy and Immigration Helped Return Trump to the White House, but with No Clear Policy Mandate

3.1 Perceptions of the Candidates

Early in the election cycle, Americans were mostly disenchanted about the prospective rematch between Presidents Trump and Biden. When asked in the January 2024 poll how a rematch of the 2020 presidential election would impact the country, 45 % indicated that such a race would be somewhat or very bad for the United States, with only 29 % indicating that the matchup would be positive for the country. Results are displayed in Figure 1.^[3] While Republicans were more enthusiastic about the pairing than Independents or Democrats, for no subgroup did we find a majority of respondents expressing an appetite for a rematch.

Figure 1:

Opinions on 2024 presidential election rematch.

Respondents who indicated that the rematch would be bad for the country were also asked why they held that opinion. A summary of their responses appears in Figure 2.^[4] The most popular responses were that the candidates were too old (with 63 % indicating this as a concern) and that Biden and Trump were caught up in the conflicts of the past (48 %). Notably, 36 % of Democrats said the candidates were not addressing the issues that matter most to them, compared to 28 % among Republicans. This was, perhaps, an early warning sign for the Democrats.

Figure 2:

Reasons why a 2020 rematch is bad for the country.

By July of 2024, the campaign had changed dramatically: President Biden stepped aside, and Kamala Haris entered the race as the new Democratic presidential nominee. Our summer survey was fielded just days after this announcement, allowing us to capture the mood of the country at this critical juncture in the race. As shown in Figure 3, in the days after Biden’s announcement, survey respondents strongly supported Biden’s decision to leave the race: indeed, 81 % percent of all respondents reported that they somewhat or strongly agreed with Biden’s move to step aside.^[5] This feeling was also felt across party lines, with 82 % of Republicans, 79 % of Independents, and 84 % of Democrats agreeing with the decision. Although Biden loyalists and some pundits questioned whether he should have departed the race so late in the campaign (Blow 2024; Kim et al. 2024), the public embraced his decision.

Figure 3:

Opinion on if it was the correct decision for Biden to step aside.

The shake-up on the Democratic side dramatically altered respondents’ characterizations of the emotional tenor of the race, in particular by increasing enthusiasm and optimism among Democrats. In each of our surveys, respondents were asked what emotions they think they would feel, both if either the Democrat (Harris or Biden, depending on the timing of the survey) or Trump won the 2024 presidential election.^[6] In Figure 4, the top panel shows respondent answers to the question about potential emotional reactions in January, while the middle and bottom panels show responses to the same question for the samples taken over the summer and in October, respectively.^[7] Each figure shows which positive emotions (pride, happiness, hope, relief) respondents reported they would feel if the political party they identified with won the presidential election, and negative emotions (sadness, disappointment, anger, fear) they would feel if the opposing party’s candidate won.

Figure 4:

Potential emotional reactions to the election.

In January, Democrats seemed to be suffering from an “emotions gap” compared to Republican respondents. Early in 2024, only 25 % of Democrats reported that they would feel “pride” if Biden won the 2024 election, with only 43 % expecting to feel “happiness.” For Democrats, the most prominent positive emotion reported as of January was “relief,” with 68 % of Democratic respondents expecting they would be relieved if Biden won. Although as of January a minority of Republicans reported they would feel “pride” if Trump won (44 %), Republicans reported much higher levels of expected positive feelings such as happiness (58 %), hope (76 %), and relief (71 %). Republicans and Democrats reported more similar levels of expected negative emotions if their side lost the presidential election. However, the results from January suggest that Democrats were not particularly enthused by the upcoming election or its potential results, even if their preferred party remained in the White House.

When Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee over the summer, this gap appeared to close. Come July, a majority of Democrats reported that they would feel pride (53 %) and happiness (59 %) if Harris were to win the election in November, a substantial jump from when the same question was asked regarding Biden in January. Notably, in the July poll, Republicans were less likely to report that they expected to feel some negative emotions if Trump lost the election. While 83 % of Republicans reported in January that they would feel “disappointment” if Trump lost to Biden, only 72 % of Republicans reported feeling the same if Trump lost to Harris. Similarly, 67 % of Republicans said they would feel “sadness” and 62 % would feel “anger” if Trump lost a 2020 rematch, while only 56 % and 42 %, respectively, reported they would feel the same emotions if Trump lost to Harris. While any of the many twists and turns that occurred in the election between the beginning and middle of 2024 may have impacted survey respondents’ perceptions of their emotional reactions to the potential election results, Harris’ entry into the race at the top of the Democratic ticket was associated with a notable shift in how both Democrats and Republicans were feeling about the election. These findings also coincide with journalistic accounts from this period, with the newly minted Harris campaign seeing dramatic increases in fundraising (Goldmacher and Haberman 2024; Hartman et al. 2024), and Democrats reporting surges in interest from volunteers (Mascaro et al. 2024).

According to the October poll, our respondents generally retained this outlook going into Election Day. For Democrats, anticipated positive feelings if Harris won were reported at higher levels in some cases. For example, while 59 % of Democrats reported they would feel “happiness” if Harris won in the summer poll, by the October poll, 68 % of Democrats reported they would feel the same. These shifts reflected a longstanding dynamic of voters embracing their partisanship and increasing enthusiasm for their candidate as Election Day approaches (Green et al. 2002).

3.2 Attitudes on Democracy

The health and fate of American democracy were central talking points in the 2024 election. Both Biden and Harris argued consistently that Trump threatened the foundations of the American political system (Axelrod 2024; Memoli and Lebowitz 2024). Trump and his team, in turn, lodged the same attack against Harris and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz in the final weeks of the campaign (Lerer 2024).

Anxieties about threats to democracy spilled over into the general population, as shown in Figure 5. In the October poll, fully 81 % of respondents perceived that the election results were extremely or very important for the future of American democracy. Supermajorities of both Democrats (90 %) and Republicans (82 %) agreed that the results were at least “very” important for the future of democracy. The extent to which they voted on this premise is a different matter, something we begin to address later on in this article.

Figure 5:

How important are the results of the 2024 presidential election for the future of American democracy?

Our results also indicated that Americans perceived numerous threats to the integrity of the election. In the October poll, respondents were invited to indicate what concerns they had about the upcoming election. Patterns of responses for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, as well as for the full sample, are presented in Figure 6.^[8] For some of these items, the percentage of respondents who perceived a threat varied by party. For example, 72 % of Republicans feared fraud and abuse associated with the counting of ballots, but only 31 % of Democrats shared this concern. Meanwhile, 69 % of Democrats expressed the concern that the losing presidential candidate would refuse to accept the election results, but only 21 % of Republicans did so. Few respondents stated that none of the items presented sparked concern, indicating that most Americans felt uneasy heading into Election Day.

Figure 6:

Election concerns.

One of the most troubling aspects of the 2024 election was the salience of political violence in the minds of voters. These concerns and conversations were not unfounded. The transition from the first Trump administration to the Biden administration in 2021 featured unprecedented chaos, culminating in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by some Trump supporters intent on blocking Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory (Mascaro et al. 2021). In 2024, two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, including one which left the candidate bloodied, marred the campaign (Colvin et al. 2024; Richer et al. 2024).

Separately from the survey question on election concerns whose results are displayed in Figure 6, respondents were asked specifically how concerned they were about the possibility of violence associated with the 2024 presidential election. A summary of their responses is displayed in Table 1. Here, we see that strong majorities of Americans across the political spectrum expressed fears about election-related violence throughout the year. Concern about election-related violence peaked for the population at large, and Republicans specifically, during the summer poll, which was fielded just weeks after the assassination attempt on Trump that occurred in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. There was nothing abstract about the shots fired at Trump during that rally. This was violence in its most concrete form, and appears to have accelerated voter fears at the time.

5.1 Immigration

Immigration policy featured centrally in the 2024 presidential race, and played an especially prominent role in Trump’s campaign. Trump has promised an ambitious – if not draconian – initiative to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States, ensuring that immigration policy will remain at the center of American politics during his second term (Grumbach 2024). We asked respondents their opinions on five immigration proposals, and found plurality support for all policies aimed at reducing the amount of immigration. Topline results are presented in Table 3. When it comes to deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, we find 47 % support in our sample compared to 34 % opposed. Looking at one of Trump’s longtime promises in building a wall along the border with Mexico, we again find 47 % of respondents in support. Forty-nine percent of our sample support using armed U.S. military and National Guard members to enforce immigration law.

We also find similar levels of support for policies that are less hostile – and indeed welcoming – to immigrants. The only item in our immigration battery that received majority support from respondents (54 %) was allowing undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements to become citizens. In addition, 50 % of respondents agreed that programs that allow refugees and asylum seekers to live and work in the United States at least temporarily should continue.

These results present seemingly contradictory findings – a country that is both friendly and hostile to immigration at the same time. These divergent results are perhaps not surprising, as immigration policy is complex and has the ability to raise a wide range of conflicting emotions and preferences (Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014, 2015; Nicholson 2012). In addition, the partisan gap in opinions plays a role. While nearly half of our sample supports deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, fully 82 % of Republicans support this policy, while only 17 % of Democrats do so. Likewise, while 47 % support building a wall along the border with Mexico, only 18 % of Democrats support the policy compared to 84 % of Republicans. Based on these findings, we have little doubt that immigration will remain a highly polarized issue during the Trump Administration.

5.2 Reproductive Rights

With the overturning of the Supreme Court precedent established in Roe v. Wade, the 2024 campaign brought new intensity to the conversation over access to reproductive care in the United States. The Court’s decision returned the question of abortion access to the states, with 10 states taking up the issue specifically in the 2024 election via ballot initiatives (Kaiser Family Foundation 2024). While Trump himself has been inconsistent in his public statements about abortion access throughout his political career (Fernando 2024a), his first-term appointees to the Supreme Court played a key role in dismantling Roe. Furthermore, implementing further restrictions on abortion remains a key issue among important conservative constituencies (Fernando 2024b).

We asked our respondents a series of questions related to abortion access. Notably, 56 % of the sample in the October poll agreed somewhat or strongly that there should be an amendment added to the U.S. Constitution that protects the right to an abortion, which would effectively nullify the decision made by the Supreme Court in Dobbs (Table 4). However, a large partisan gap exists on the issue. Support for a constitutional amendment to protect abortion is very strong among Democrats (87 %), while only 25 % of Republicans support such an effort.

On the flip side of a majority of respondents supporting a constitutional amendment to protect abortion access, we find only 15 % of respondents favor a national ban on abortion. Although there is again a partisan gap in opinion on this issue, with 28 % of Republicans supporting a national ban compared to only 7 % of Democrats, we find no evidence for broad support for banning abortion nationwide. In general, we find majority support for laws that protect abortion access and the medical professionals who provide reproductive health care services.

While partisan gaps in support for various policies associated with reproductive care do exist, based on our polling, it is difficult to claim that the new administration has a national mandate on implementing further restrictions to reproductive healthcare in the United States.

5.3 Family Policy

We asked our sample to respond to a battery of policy questions dealing with families, many of which were discussed at some point throughout the campaign. To start, we asked about support for ending no-fault divorce. Although no-fault divorce was not a key tenet of Trump’s campaign for president, comments previously made by Vice President J.D. Vance raised concerns for some that ending the policy would become, at the very least, a more mainstream topic in policy discussions (Bellware and Timsit 2024; Kruesi 2024). We find only 22 % of our sample supports this, while 36 % oppose.^[14] Support is low across all demographics, with Republicans having the highest levels of support at only 30 %.

Where we do find broad support on family policy issues are on attitudes toward paid maternal and paternal leave, paid family leave, increasing the child tax credit, and capping childcare costs. Starting with maternity leave, we find 78 % of our sample supports requiring employers to provide paid leave to mothers following the birth or adoption of a child. There is even broad bipartisan support, with 91 % of Democrats and 70 % of Republicans indicating support. Paternity leave has less support, but still a majority of 66 % supports paid leave for fathers. There is less bipartisan support for this policy, with 87 % of Democrats and 49 % of Republicans in support. Next, we find 76 % of our sample supports requiring employers to provide paid leave to employees caring for a family member with a serious medical condition. Opposition is low at 8 %. Thinking about the child tax credit, 60 % of our sample supports increasing from $2,000 to $5,000. This includes 77 % of Democrats and 51 % of Republicans. Finally, we find that 51 % of our sample supports the federal government ensuring that families with children spend no more than seven percent of their total income on childcare. We also find a larger, 28-point gap in support between Democrats (67 %) and Republicans (39 %). Across the board, then, we see strong support for increasing social spending to support families. On the whole, the Republican Party has traditionally been against extending these benefits, though during the campaign Vance expressed openness to more spending in this area, most notably with the child tax credit (Gold and Sequeira 2024; Picchi 2024).

Finally, we ask about policies related to families and health insurance. Results appear in Table 5. Many of these policies were those that were first implemented by the Affordable Care Act in 2010, a law that Trump unsuccessfully dedicated extensive political capital to overturning during his first term (Pear, Thomas, and Maggie 2017). First, we ask whether private health insurance companies should be prohibited from denying coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition. We find 70 % of our sample supports this policy while 15 % oppose it. This includes majorities of Democrats (82 %) and Republicans (65 %). Considering the role of family health insurance plans, we find that 67 % of our sample supports allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26. We find majority support among Democrats (81 %) and Republicans (56 %).

5.4 Project 2025

Throughout the campaign, one suite of policy proposals that was often discussed by commentators on both sides of the aisle was Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations’ playbook for an incoming Republican president. The document lays out ideas that would make sweeping changes across to the size, scope, and role of the federal government, and that would have impacts on policy issues from health care to immigration.^[15] Although the Trump campaign repeatedly attempted to distance themselves from the effort (Levien 2024), others have pointed out the numerous links between the authors of Project 2025, the previous Trump administration, and some of Trump’s own policies (Kelly 2024; Shao and Wu 2024). As the Trump administration begins its term, and fellow Republicans take control of both the House and Senate, it is important to understand where Americans stood on these issues at the time of the election.

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, survey respondents overwhelmingly were aware of Project 2025. When asked how much they have read, seen, or heard about the initiative, only 18 % of all survey respondents claimed they had not heard of it. This held true for 20 % of Republicans, 29 % of Independents, and 12 % of Democrats. Project 2025 was also very unpopular. When asked to rate it on a 0 to 100 feeling thermometer, the average respondent gave it a score of 25. This compares with an average score of 42 for both Elon Musk and Taylor Swift, two polarizing public figures, and even 45 for the much-contested Electoral College. Americans also expressed disapproval of prominent Project 2025 proposals, as shown in Table 6.

The policy with the least support is restricting women’s access to contraception. Only 8 % of our sample supports this policy, while 74 % oppose. The next most unpopular policy – firing federal employees and replacing them with loyal political appointments – only enjoys 10 % support while 69 % oppose. Eliminating the Department of Education only has 22 % support, as does cutting funding for renewable energy research and investment. While 26 % of respondents support reducing civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, and transgender people, fully 47 % oppose doing this. Compared with these previous policies, efforts to end federal policies promoting DEI in education, employment, and housing enjoys more support at 36 %, with 43 % opposed. Finally, the most popular of our items on Project 2025 is shutting down websites that contain pornography – 44 % of our sample supports this policy, and only 31 % oppose it. Overall, the majority of the policies we surveyed are unpopular among the American public, some deeply so, such as restricting access to contraception. It is far from clear whether Trump will pursue every policy proposed by the Heritage Foundation. Indeed, our findings suggest he should continue to hold many of them at arm’s length. Nonetheless, Heritage has staked out a conservative agenda, which they will attempt to lobby within the Republican Party, compelling Trump to manage this faction in competition with others.