“Personality is key”: John Zogby on Trump, Harris and the 2024 Election

“There’s an ugly mood in the United States today”, Zogby begins, as we open our conversation. “It’s not new – it’s been building.”

With less than one week to go until November 5, the veteran pollster doesn’t hold back in explaining why this feels like an extraordinarily high-stakes election. “2024 is the first of what I would call a real ‘Armageddon election’, where many on both sides feel that if the other wins, this is truly the end of the United States.”

There’s sufficient evidence to back up Zogby’s view that the national mood is one of pessimism, despite the energy that Kamala Harris has arguably injected since becoming the face of the Democratic ticket. In the latest NYT / Siena poll of likely voters, more than three-fifths said the country was heading in the “wrong direction”. Only around a quarter thought the opposite.

“Traditionally this impacts the incumbent party”, Zogby reflects on these figures. “Both parties are lamented, but it will have a greater impact on incumbents.”

So where are we now?

“The two sides are at equilibrium”, Zogby observes, describing the current balance. “A kind of calm before the storm.”

“Nationally and in the seven battleground states, this is a tie – at least as we speak. Will the dam break one way or another? It can, and it has. I’m not ruling it out here, but at least for much of this campaign and right on up to this moment, no one leads the presidential race.”

Both candidates are relying on different, distinct parts of the electorate to carry them over the line, Zogby explains. Harris, he argues, has built “what can only be called an ‘unholy alliance’” as the base of her support. The three pillars Zogby identifies are traditional Democrats, some – but not enough – progressives, and “disaffected Republicans who hate Donald Trump.”

This is proving difficult for Harris, Zogby explains, in that it’s therefore “hard for her to talk in detail about policy without angering one side or the other”. “So what is the common denominator that holds this alliance together? It’s a fear of Donald Trump, and reproductive rights.”

Trump, on the other hand, speaks to a certain “anger” among the American electorate fomented over several generations as the United States has undergone significant change, Zogby explains. “Those who work at jobs that pay less than previous jobs… who look outside their windows” and wonder “what’s happened to [their] community?”. A number of these voters take a nostalgic approach to American history, reflecting back on a time when the United States was always able to say “it’s our way or the highway”, but now ask themselves “where is that American greatness anymore?”.

But how does an appeal to these voters work – and what role is personality playing?

“Let me begin by saying personality is key”, Zogby says. “It’s very important because voters need to bond with a candidate in some way to feel that the candidate represents them, speaks for them, and understands them. That’s critical.”

Zogby looks to historical precedent to illustrate how and where personality has proved key. “Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, those winning candidates had a personality that voters could project themselves on to.” To say, “this is my guy. This is who I want to lead. This guy has a story. That I can relate to.”

“Joe Biden was able to win with that leveling story”, Zogby explains. “You’ve suffered, Americans. I’ve suffered. I lost my family; I lost my son. He was Uncle Joe, you know?”.

Come 2024, however, “that story could not be told anymore.”

Despite Biden’s withdrawal, it does not appear that pure positivity and a strong and engaging personality is having the same effect this year as it has in the past. “To use the cliché, the smiling candidate has traditionally won – not all the time – but you know, the happier face, the vision, the projection for the future of better days are ahead.”

“I just don’t see that working this time around.”

There is, however, a dividing line between the candidates, Zogby explains. While much lingering anger fuels support for Trump, Harris is attempting to paint a brighter picture. “She is the all in one, the demography of the future of the United States. She’s a woman in what many would argue is a feminist-focused society, she’s South Asian, and she’s Black.”

“In addition to that, somebody told her you got a beautiful smile – use it. It’s rage versus that smile.”

“And there we go. It’s equilibrium.”

Both candidates are succeeding, though, in drawing voters to their cause. That is emphatically clear in the polling. But what traits are cutting through?

In ViewsHub’s ‘Who is Fit to Govern the US?’ tracker, a crowd-sourced platform aimed at assessing the personality traits of America’s leading political figures, some of the distinct traits of both candidates were clear. For Trump, contributors identified a personality that was “dominant”, “forceful” “retaliatory”, and “focused on himself”.

Harris, on the other hand, was seen as “considerate”, more “structured” and “serious”, but equally quite “persistent” and “tenacious”. We put those traits to John Zogby.

“I agree”, he says. “I think that it’s very important that [Harris] is a prosecutor. That puts her on an equal level with Donald Trump – being a prosecutor against a convicted felon. You know, that’s the kind of perfect storm there.”

But Trump’s distinct traits are also having significant implications for the shape of the electorate. Polls continue to suggest that this will be the most gendered election in history. Recent NYT/Siena polling indicates that this gender divide is most stark among young people, with a divide of up to 60 percentage points. Trump leads Harris among young men, 58 percent to 37 percent, while Harris holds an even larger lead among young women, 67-28.

We put to Zogby the potential influence of Trump’s ‘strongman’ traits on contributing to this divide. “I think [the divide] already exists. But the fact that it happens to be a man versus a woman puts an exclamation point on what really is an unprecedented gender gap.”

“But”, he continues, “I think that the one thing that can be healed is the young gender gap.”

That said, though, Trump’s direct appeal to young men – and men more widely – seems deliberate. “You know, Donald Trump is the baddest guy in town – and guys like that”, Zogby says. “He and JD Vance are talking to guys, there’s no pretense at all that there’s a ‘softer’ side to the campaign.”

Is it worth looking at voter perceptions of candidate personality to judge where an election might go?

“It’s a vital piece of the mix, you know, to boil it down in simple terms. If [voters] like the candidate on a personal level and feel that they are ‘one’ in some way with that candidate, they’ll follow them on the issues. In fact, they’ll project themselves [onto candidates].”

“People have to be comfortable and need to bond with who they’re going to vote for for President. And in that sense, you have two radically distinct personalities here, each right now representing about half of the electorate.”

So where are we headed – and what might be the deciding factor in the election?

“It’s very complicated”, Zogby concedes. But those considered before are those which Zogby thinks are making things most difficult for Harris. Chief among these is the fact that Kamala Harris “represents an unpopular administration – whether it’s fair or not.”

“From the point of view of a lot of voters, inflation – even its slower rate – is building upon prices that are too high. You’ve got a burgeoning war in the Middle East” and a majority of the electorate that “feel the country is heading in the wrong direction”.

“That’s how it’s close”, Zogby concludes.

“I can’t quite predict it”, Zogby says of determining what might prove the most influential factor in the election’s eventual outcome. “I have a hunch – and this is only a hunch – that this may be an election like 1980, Carter versus Reagan, or 2012, Obama versus Romney, where the dam breaks over the weekend, and it’s not so close.”

“I’m just not sure which way the dam is going to break.”