JD Vance’s favorability rating has had “serious positive movement” and is marginally positive for the first time in months, a new poll shows.
The Republican nominee for Vice President has struggled in the polls since he was picked as Donald Trump’s running mate in July, but he ended up coming off well during his recent debate with his Democratic counterpart, Tim Walz.
Vance’s favorability is currently at 45.4 percent, against an unfavorability rating of 45, according to a new survey carried out by analytics firm Cygnal. That gives him a net favorability of 0.4 with a +/- 2.52 percent margin of error, which makes it statistically net even.
The survey, of 1,500 people between October 2 and 3, marks a significant change to Cygnal’s previous polls.
Its early September poll had Vance’s favorability rating at minus 8, with 48 percent saying he was unfavorable over 39 percent favorable.
AP
Cygnal’s analysts linked this “serious positive movement” to Vance’s Vice-Presidential debate performance, noting that Walz’s image has remained “generally consistent.”
Walz’s favorability rating came out at 47 percent, over a 42.5-percent unfavorability rating, in the same October poll, a net of 4.5.
The Minnesota Governor has consistently had a positive favorability rating, with Cygnal’s previous polls showing him with a 45-percent favorability rating over 40-percent unfavorability in September and 35-percent favorability rating over 31-percent unfavorability in August. All three within a range of 4 to 5 net favorability.
Vance has seen his image improve most notably among urban voters (+19 net favorability) and Independents (+26 net favourability) while Walz’s image has dipped -8 net favorability and -12 net favorability in each of these categories respectively.
Newsweek has contacted teams for Vance and the Kamala Harris-Walz campaign, via email, for comment.
It comes after Nate Silver, a statistician and the founder of the polling aggregator 538, cast doubt on Harris’ choice in Walz.
“I’m not into Tim Walz,” Silver said in the October 9 episode of Risky Business, the podcast he hosts with Maria Konnikova. Silver said in a previous episode that he intends to vote for Harris in November.
Discussing the Vice-Presidential debate on October 1, Silver said: “You don’t want to make Trump and Vance seem sane,” adding that Walz was “doing this whole nice guy thing.”
He went on to say Walz was “tactically not very good at going after JD Vance,” whom he described as “an objectively better debater.”
Newsweek has contacted the Harris-Walz campaign, via email, for a response to this too.