JD Vance’s popularity has gone back down after it briefly spiked following the vice presidential debate, a poll shows.
The Ohio Senator has struggled in the polls since he was announced as Trump’s running mate in July, but his popularity increased after he debated with his Democratic counterpart Tim Walz on October 2.
Vance’s favorability ratings have dropped to being “about as negative as they were before the debate,” according to this week’s The Economist/YouGov poll.
As of October 12, Vance had a -10 favorability rating, down from the -2 it was on October 5, three days after the debate.
Walz’s favorability went down from +0 to -2 after the debate, but this has now risen to -1, according to the poll.
The poll was carried out between October 12 and 15, among 1,624 U.S. citizens, 33 percent of which were Democrats and 31 percent Republican. It disclaims a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
Newsweek has contacted Vance, via email outside of normal working hours, for comment.
JD Vance speaks at a campaign rally at Wilmington International Airport, Wilmington, North Carolina, on October 16. His popularity has dipped since the VP debate, a poll shows.
AP
Vance was generally seen to “exceed expectations at the debate,” political scientist Christopher Cooper, from Western Carolina University, previously told Newsweek.
He was commenting on a Cygnal poll conducted on October 2 and 3, which found that Vance’s favorability rating was marginally positive for the first time in months after the debate.
Cooper said at the time: “We need to remember that this is just one poll—to understand whether this is a blip or a trend, we will need to wait a bit to see more polling roll in.”
Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight seems to be showing that most polls are finding Vance has a higher unfavorability than favorability rating, with margins ranging from two to 11.
Vance previously said he does not believe public opinion polls while speaking at a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in August.
He said at the time: “Well look, I don’t believe the polls when they say that we’re up, I don’t believe the polls when they say tied, I don’t believe the polls that say that we’re down. Our job is to win the trust of the American voters, not public opinion polls.
“I believe that the media puts out these polls knowing that it’s going to depress turnout and it’s going to make the conversation about the polls. Who cares what the polls say? Whether they say we’re up or down, what I care about is that Americans can’t afford groceries.”
University of Kentucky political science professor D. Stephen Voss previously told Newsweek that polling was “going to bounce up and down a bit between now and Election Day.”
He said: “The temptation will be to try to attach interpretations to every swing up or down in a candidate’s polling, but most of the time, short-term fluctuations in polling are not meaningful. Poll respondents do not make their decisions in exactly the same way voters ultimately do.”
