US: Republicans have lost six popularity points due to “self-sabotage”

US: Since the beginning of October, swing voters have been less supportive of both former president Donald Trump and vice president Kamala Harris. Over the last week, the Republican has lost six popularity points as a result of “self-sabotage,” according to statistics from social media tracking firm Impact Social.

According to the statistics, from the period of September 27 to October 18, Harris’s rating with swing voters went from -8 to -17, while Trump’s went from -10 to -23. A political scientist told Newsweek that the presidential hopefuls from both the Republican and Democratic parties have turned into “polarizing figures” in the eyes of American voters.

In what seems to be a closely contested race based on polls and electoral analysis, Trump and Harris are vying for swing votes. FiveThirtyEight, a poll analytics website, predicted Trump a 51 percent probability of winning as of October 18, higher than Harris’ 49 percent. Separately, prominent bookmakers presently give the former president an average probability of winning of 58.5 percent, ahead of the vice president at 40.5 percent, according to an average collected by data aggregator RealClearPolitics.

According to the Impact Social social media survey, since the beginning of August, swing voters have been less favorable toward both Harris and Trump; nevertheless, the Democrat’s slide has been more pronounced.
On August 8, Harris’s approval rating among swing voters was a ten, but by September 3, it was an eleven. After September’s presidential debate versus Trump, her rating went up to -3, but on October 18, it still dropped to -17.
In contrast, Trump’s rating began at -8 and dropped to a low of -27 after the debate. It then increased to -10 on September 27 and then dropped again to -23 on October 18. Notably, both candidates are much less popular with swing voters than President Joe Biden was on October 18, 2020, when Trump recorded -16 and the then-Democratic presidential contender was on -4, according to Impact Social statistics.

An algorithm that examined a “statistically representative sample” of social media postings made by those classified as swing voters produced the Impact Social sentiment analysis. Impact Social assembled a database of 40,000 important swing voters in 2016 who fit a number of crucial criteria.

Impact Social said that after 81-year-old Joe Biden withdrew from the campaign in July, swing voters have been scrutinizing Trump more and more due to his age and intelligence.

The business stated: “Since Biden withdrew from the race, attention has naturally shifted to the 78-year-old former president, with independents talking about Trump’s sporadic forgetfulness on the campaign trail. The release of video from an appearance in Pennsylvania when Team Trump’s leader transformed a political gathering into a music and dance festival and seemed to sway to tunes for almost thirty minutes will worry them more. Many independents found this to be strange and disturbing.”

Impact Social linked Trump’s “self-sabotage” to a drop in swing voters’ favor over the previous week.

By seeming to caricature Black Americans “by offering policies that would ‘appeal’ to their needs and lifestyle such as the liberalization of drug laws,” the corporation said Harris had alienated both Black and non-Black swing votes.

In an interview with Newsweek, Dafydd Townley, an American politics professor at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, said that neither Trump nor Harris had amassed the type of cross-party support that would have attracted swing votes, in contrast to Biden in 2020.

“It’s not surprising that Biden had more appeal across the political spectrum,” he said. He has dedicated a significant portion of his professional life to working across party lines with Republicans to enact legislation.”Both Trump and Harris have grown to be divisive personalities, and they are now attempting to win over supporters who are unhappy with the leaders of their parties.

Due to the likelihood of a close victory in certain battleground areas, the undecided voters in swing states will be very important to the outcome of this election. There may be more indecisive voters than in other years since the number of early voters is lower than in past years.”