Wide differences in views of how women and men would fare under a Harris or Trump administration
Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ views of how the outcome of the 2024 presidential election would affect different groups in society.
For this analysis, we surveyed 9,720 adults – including 8,044 registered voters – from Aug. 26 to Sept. 2, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, the topline and the survey methodology.
Voters have differing expectations for whether things will improve – or get worse – for various groups in society if Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump holds the White House next year.
They are more likely to say that Harris’ policies would make things better for women, union members, Black people, Hispanic people and poor people than to say this of Trump’s policies.
By comparison, voters are more likely to predict that Trump’s policies would make things better for wealthy people, White people, men and military veterans. One of the largest advantages for Harris is over how voters think women would fare in each potential administration:
- 49% of registered voters say Harris’ policies would make things better for women, while 27% say her policies would make things worse.
- Voters say the reverse about Trump’s policies: 30% say his policies would make things better for women, 46% say they’d make things worse.
- For both candidates, about a quarter of voters (23% each) say that things would not change much for women either way.
The Pew Research Center survey – conducted Aug. 26-Sept. 2 among 9,720 members of the Center’s American Trends Panel, including 8,044 registered voters – finds that there are even bigger differences in views of which candidate would make things better for wealthy people, with more saying this group would benefit from a Trump administration than a Harris one.
- 67% of voters say Trump’s policies would make things better for wealthy people. Far fewer (19%) say this about Harris’ policies.
- Just 5% of voters say that Trump’s policies would make things worse for wealthy Americans, while 28% say his policies would not make much difference for them.
- Nearly half of voters (46%) say Harris wouldn’t change things much for wealthy people, while about a third (34%) say her policies would make things worse for this group.
How Harris and Trump backers say their policies will affect groups
Supporters of Harris and Trump tend to say that their candidate’s policies would make things better for most groups and that the other candidate’s policies would make things worse for most groups. Yet there are differences in the extent to which supporters say the candidates’ policies would make things better or worse for different groups.
Policy impacts on men and women
Women
Among registered voters, overwhelming majorities of Harris backers say that her policies would make things better for women (83%) and that Trump’s would make things worse (86%).
Narrower majorities of Trump supporters say that he would make things better for women and that Harris would make things worse: 61% of Trump supporters say that Trump’s policies would improve things for women, and 53% say Harris would have a negative impact on women.
Men
Six-in-ten Harris supporters say her policies would not change things much either way for men, while slightly more than a third (36%) say they would make things better.
Harris supporters are about evenly divided on how Trump’s policies would impact men: 30% say they would make things worse and 28% say they would make things better, while 41% say they would not have much effect either way.
By contrast, 63% of Trump supporters say that he would make things better for men, and 69% say Harris would make things worse for men.
Predictions of how the candidates’ policies will affect racial and ethnic groups
Impact of Trump’s policies
Six-in-ten or more Trump backers say that Trump’s policies would make things better for Black (65%), White (64%), Hispanic (63%) and Asian people (60%).
Harris backers are somewhat more likely to say that Trump’s policies would help (35%) rather than hurt (23%) White people. Yet clear majorities of Harris supporters expect that Trump’s policies would have negative impacts on Hispanic (81%), Black (78%) and Asian people (65%).
Impact of Harris’ policies
Majorities of Harris supporters say she would make things better for Black (66%) and Hispanic (62%) people, and about half (51%) say she would make things better for Asian people. About half of Trump supporters say that Harris would make things worse for each of these groups.
And about six-in-ten voters who favor Harris (59%) say she would not change things much either way for White people, while 36% say she would make things better. Seven-in-ten voters who favor Trump say Harris would make things worse for White people.
How Trump and Harris administrations would affect wealthy and poor people
Wealthy people
Harris supporters overwhelmingly (86%) say that Trump’s policies would lead to improvements for wealthy people. Trump’s own supporters are divided: About half say his policies would make things better for wealthy people (49%), and a similar share (47%) say they would not change things much either way.
At the same time, 62% of Harris supporters say that her policies would not change things much either way for wealthy Americans, while 22% say they would make things worse for this group and 15% say they would make things better.
About half of Trump supporters (48%) say that Harris’ policies would make things worse for wealthy people, 28% say they won’t have much of an effect, and 23% say they would make things better.
Poor people
Supporters’ expectations for how each candidate’s policies would affect poor people are more consistent with the patterns for other groups. Roughly three-quarters of Harris supporters (76%) say that Harris’ policies would make things better for poor people, and a nearly identical share of Trump backers (75%) say that Trump’s policies would do this.
Roughly eight-in-ten Harris backers (83%) say that Trump’s policies would make things worse for poor people, and nearly two-thirds of voters who favor Trump (65%) say that Harris’ policies would negatively impact poor people.
How policies would affect union members
Majorities of supporters of each candidate say that their candidate would make things better for labor union members, though Harris supporters are 9 percentage points more likely to say this than Trump supporters (63% vs. 54%).
About three-quarters of Harris supporters (74%) say that Trump’s policies would make things worse for union members, while 52% of Trump supporters say that Harris’ policies would make things worse.
How policies would affect veterans
More than eight-in-ten Trump supporters (83%) say that Trump’s policies would improve things for veterans of the military. A narrower majority of Harris supporters (58%) say that Harris’ policies would make things better for veterans.
About seven-in-ten Trump supporters (71%) say that things would be worse for veterans under a Harris administration. Nearly six-in-ten Harris backers (58%) say that Trump’s policies would make things worse for veterans.
