Close fight in the trenches: A look at the ground game in the presidential race: POLL
A narrow edge in voter contact by Kamala Harris' campaign at the national level fades to parity in the battleground states -- but Harris has been doing more to turn her contacts into voter assistance, an ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.
Three weeks before Election Day, and with early voting underway in more than 40 states, the level of political outreach is vast. More than four in 10 Americans have been contacted by the Harris or Trump campaigns asking for their vote, rising to 62% in the seven battleground states.
Nationally, 30% report having been contacted by Harris' campaign, vs. 26% by Trump's -- a small edge for Harris. This evens out in the battleground states, where 47% report contacts by Trump's campaign, 46% by Harris'. These counts exclude fundraising appeals -- and surely have grown since this survey was completed last week.
In all, 16% of adults have been contacted nationally by Harris' campaign only, 12% by Trump's only and 14% by both, adding to 42%. In the battlegrounds, it's 15% by Trump only, 14% by Harris only and 32% by both.
Assistance
There's a gap in terms of voter assistance. Nationally, 43% of those contacted by the Harris campaign say they were offered one of several forms of voting assistance, vs. 35% of those contacted by Trump's campaign. In the battleground states, offers of assistance run 48-39% in Harris' favor, a slight advantage given sample sizes.
Forms of assistance tested in the survey include checking that people are registered to vote, confirming their plans to vote and making sure they know where to vote. In the battlegrounds (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), people contacted by Harris are 8 percentage points more apt than those contacted by Trump to report help making sure they're registered and 7 points more apt to report an effort to confirm they have voted or will vote, both slight differences given sample sizes. Gaps nationally are similar.
Targeting
This poll, produced by Langer Research Associates for ABC, with fieldwork by Ipsos, also finds some signs of more targeted outreach by Harris. Nationally, 46% of Democrats have heard from her campaign, vs. 37% of Republicans contacted by the Trump campaign. And 42% of Harris supporters say her campaign has reached out to them, vs. 35% of Trump's supporters contacted by his side.
Similar to Harris' lead on overall contacts, these gaps disappear in the battleground states. That said, among people in these states who report having voted for Joe Biden in 2020, 71% report a contact by the Harris campaign this year. Among those who voted for Trump in 2020, fewer, 59%, report a 2024 Trump campaign contact.
Naturally, Harris' campaign has had far more contact than Trump's among Democrats and liberals, while Trump's has done more outreach to Republicans and conservatives. National results also demonstrate campaign targeting in other ways. Three examples:
- Forty-one percent of Black people -- a broadly pro-Harris group -- report contact by Harris' campaign, compared with 26% contacted by Trump's. More narrowly, 27% of Hispanic people report contact by the Harris campaign vs. 21% by the Trump campaign. (There are no differences in campaign contacts among white people.)
- Among people younger than 40 -- a generally pro-Harris group -- 27% report a Harris campaign contact vs. 19% contacted by the Trump campaign.
- By contrast, among white evangelical Protestants, a solidly pro-Trump group, 34% have been contacted by the Trump campaign, vs. 16% by Harris'.
There are inefficiencies on both sides. Nationally, 24% of Trump supporters have been contacted by the Harris campaign asking for their vote, and 21% of Harris supporters have been contacted by the Trump campaign. Misplaced outreach rises in the battlegrounds: There, 44% of Harris supporters have been asked for a Trump vote, and 41% of Trump supporters have heard from the Harris campaign.
Using national data for adequate sample sizes, there are several groups in which Harris' campaign exceeds Trump's in offering assistance to people they've contacted. It's 58% among Black people contacted by Harris' campaign vs. 38% among Black people contacted by Trump's. It's 40% among college graduates contacted by Harris vs. 26% among those contacted by Trump. And the Harris campaign has offered assistance to 42% of independents it's contacted, a potential swing voter group, vs. 32% among independents contacted by the Trump campaign.
Text me maybe
Text messages are the most common types of outreach, reported by 61% of those who've heard from either or both of the campaigns. That's followed by email, 43%; postal mail, 36%; social media, 25%; and phone or voicemail, 19%.
Last on the list is the kind of outreach many political scientists say is most effective -- in-person contact, reported by 6%.
The distribution of contact types is similar across the two campaigns overall, albeit with more digital outreach by Harris and more by mail from Trump. Nationally, 84% of her contacts report having heard from her campaign by text, email or on social media vs. 77% of Trump's. Trump, for his part, leads on postal mail outreach, 38 vs. 29%. Distributions look largely similar in the battlegrounds, although both campaigns appear to be focusing more on postal mail; 56% of battleground state respondents who have been contacted by either campaign have been contacted via postal mail vs. 36% nationally.
Methodology
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® Oct. 4-8, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,631 adults. Partisan divisions are 29-29-30%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Error margins are larger for subgroups, including 5 points for battleground state residents. Sampling error is not the only cause of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.
