CBS News Trump v. Harris poll: How much does candidate likability — or unlikability — matter?

Being seen as likable matters more for Kamala Harris than it does for Donald Trump. 

When voters express positive views about either candidate’s behavior or personal traits, they are overwhelmingly backing them in similarly huge numbers. 

But what about when they don’t like the candidates? The relationship between unlikability and vote choice isn’t as strong, at least for Trump. 

When voters don’t like Harris, nearly all of them aren’t voting for her, but when voters don’t like Trump, there’s a sizable segment that still supports him. 

Harris outpaces Trump on being personally liked, but there are about half of voters who dislike the way she handles herself personally. A mere 5% who dislike her are voting for her. 

But among the nearly two-thirds of voters who don’t like Trump personally, 21% are voting for him — that’s four times the number of voters who don’t like Harris personally but are backing her.

This is the case for both men and women who dislike the way the candidates handle themselves personally. The percentages of men and women who say they dislike Harris and are backing her are roughly equal and still lower than the percentages of men and women who dislike Trump and are backing him. 

This pattern extends to another characteristic, too. Most voters say they find Trump insulting when he speaks, but more than a quarter of those who do are backing him anyway. Among voters who think Harris is insulting, she gets only single-digit support. 

(Overall, more voters find Harris reasonable and intelligent when she talks than they do Trump. She has a slight edge on being clear.) 

We’ve seen this play out over the years: some voters overlook some personal traits and behavior with regard to Trump. It’s part of what keeps this presidential race competitive. 

Backing this up, we find that while both Harris and Trump voters place a lot of importance on a candidate’s policies, far fewer Trump voters say a candidate’s personal qualities are very important to them. And it’s even fewer still among the Trump voters who say they dislike him who place a priority on personal qualities.

Most of the voters who dislike how Trump handles himself but are still supporting him also voted for Trump in 2020, so in some ways they know what they are getting. Most of his current backers (and most voters overall) believe Trump is the same in regard to things he says and does as when he was president. 

---

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a representative sample of 3,129 registered voters nationwide interviewed between September 18-20, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, as well as past vote. Respondents were selected to be representative of registered voters nationwide. The margin of error for registered voters is ±2.2 points. Battlegrounds are AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, and WI.

Toplines: