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In the wake of President Joe Biden's stunning decision to step away from the 2024 presidential election and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrats' presidential nominee, Harris has been riding a wave of enthusiasm among voters. She has raised record amounts of money, attracted sell-out crowds at campaign rallies, and featured in countless memes and remixes. Where Biden once trailed Trump by a considerable margin, Harris is now running even in the White House race.
All the while, Harris has faced blistering racial attacks from prominent Republicans. Most notably, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned Harris' identity as a Black woman and raised concerns about her intelligence. These attacks are likely designed to activate racial animus in the minds of white voters and discourage them from supporting Harris' candidacy.
Will such attacks work? Could racial animus harm Harris' chances of winning the election, as some commentators have speculated? Our recent polling sheds unique light on this question. We find that racial attitudes are closely related to white people's support for Harris in 2024.
Every year, we conduct multiple nationally representative polls of Americans. We were polling in January when Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate for president, and in August we completed another poll after Harris became the nominee.
Using these two surveys, we can compare the influence of racial animus among white Americans on support for the Democratic nominee when the race featured two white candidates to when Harris entered the race.
In both surveys, we asked white respondents for whom they intend to vote for president, and then asked their opinions about three statements that measure generalized racial attitudes, or what political scientists call the Fear, Institutionalized Racism, and Empathy (FIRE) scale. These statements were: "White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin;" "Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations;" and "I am angry that racism exists." White respondents who deny white people's advantages, the prevalence of racism, and do not express anger about racism are considered to have higher racial animus.
So, what did we find?
First, white people's negative racial views mattered even when Joe Biden was in the race.
If we divide white respondents into low, medium, and high levels of racial animus, 79 percent of those with the least animus said they would support Biden in a head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump. Yet, 91 percent of white people with the most racial animus supported Trump.
These are substantial differences. And they're about what we would expect given the central role of race in American presidential campaigns. Due to Democrats' close association with civil rights, white Americans' presidential preferences have long been influenced by attitudes about race.
Yet, our data shows that with Harris as the Democratic nominee, racial animus plays an even larger role in determining white voters' choices.
Ninety-one percent of white people with low racial animus indicated they will vote for Harris, while 88 percent of white people with high racial animus said they will vote for Trump.
When we take into account other factors that influence voters' decisions—such as partisanship, ideology, education, attitudes toward women, and economic views—in January, support for Biden was 68 percentage points lower among white people with the most racial animus compared to those with the least level of racial animus. In July, considering these same factors, things were notably worse for Harris. Support for Harris was 80 percentage points lower among white people with the most racial animus compared to those with the least.
These patterns show that Harris is being penalized by a portion of the white electorate due to her racial identity. As our previous research on sexism in the election has shown, there are costs to running for office as a biracial woman.
But the flip side of our analysis is that Harris enjoys overwhelming support from white voters with the lowest levels of racial animus. This may help explain Harris' surge among white voters. Harris' racial and gender identities may also energize women and people of color, offsetting losses among white voters with negative racial views.
We can't know yet how racial attitudes will influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. However, our results suggest that racial prejudice still matters in American elections. While the nation continues its unsteady march toward racial equality, much remains to be done to put the scourge of racial prejudice in the nation's rearview mirror.
Jesse Rhodes is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and co-director of the UMass Poll.
Tatishe Nteta is provost professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the director of the UMass Poll.
Adam Eichen is a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and graduate research fellow for the UMass Poll.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
