Over the past week, Americans were more likely to hear news about former President Donald Trump than about Vice President Kamala Harris, according to The Breakthrough, a CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are actually hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential candidates throughout the campaign.
But after a spate of high-profile news that drew attention largely across the political spectrum — including the presidential debate and the first assassination attempt against Trump — this week’s data shows a significant divergence between what Democrats and Republicans each recalled hearing about the GOP nominee. Republicans focused more on the assassination attempt against the former president in Florida earlier this month, while Democrats continued to say they were hearing more about his baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
In the most recent survey — conducted September 20-23 by SSRS and Verasight on behalf of a research team from CNN, Georgetown University and the University of Michigan, three-quarters of Americans said they’d consumed at least some news about Trump, slightly outpacing the 69% who said the same about Harris. That’s a shift from late August and early September, when roughly equal shares recalled hearing news about each of the candidates.
Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to mention the word “assassination” and other phrases surrounding the attempt on Trump’s life, such as references to the golf course where the attempt took place.
“Donald Trump has been out on the campaign trail and it’s getting dangerous for him. He had a second attempt on his life recently at a golf course,” one respondent wrote.
Democrats were more likely to still focus on the September presidential debate, bringing up words like “lie” and references to Trump falsely claiming that migrants in Ohio were eating pets. “He continues to peddle the Springfield story about Haitian immigrants eating local pets,” wrote another respondent. “He is using anti-Semitic tropes in his speeches. He continues to spread mistruths about his performance in the debate.”
Political independents mentioned both sets of topics, the survey found, and Americans across the aisle were about equally likely to mention words pointing more broadly to the presidential race, such as “campaign” or “election.”
Some of the disparity between Democrats and Republicans may stem from a difference in the media sources consumed. But it may also reflect differences in the news stories that resonate more with each group — as well the way partisans on each side are likely to describe those stories when asked, which often reflects their own political sentiments.
Asked what they’d seen, read or heard about Harris, meanwhile, Americans’ responses included the word “debate” — a reference both to her performance in her first presidential debate and her stated willingness for a rematch against Trump — as well as her interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The sentiment behind the words Americans used to describe what they’d heard about Harris remained more positive than the words they used to describe the news about Trump. This doesn’t mean that they expressed warmer feelings about her personally but that what they said about her tended to be framed in relatively positive terms and tone.
However, the gap in sentiments about the two candidates was significantly smaller than it was last week in the wake of the debate. The tone of responses relating to Harris were slightly more negative than positive, bringing her sentiment number roughly in line with where it was prior to the debate, while Trump’s remained in negative territory.
