How to Lose Voters and Alienate Women: JD Vance Is Blowing It

This release incorporates the results of two Blueprint polls gauging voter awareness of and sentiment around Vance. The first poll was conducted on July 21 and July 22, just days after Vance accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination. The second was conducted about two weeks later, on August 4.

August 12, 2024

Vice presidential candidates generally enjoy a bit of a honeymoon phase immediately after they’re selected; JD Vance’s elevation to the national stage has been anything but, a new poll from Blueprint finds. As voters have gotten to know Vance in the weeks since Donald Trump announced him as his running mate, their initial takeaway has been largely negative—with Vance’s most extreme positions and statements playing large roles in shaping impressions of him. Relatedly, positive attributes associated with Vance are quickly fading from voters’ consciousness.

A comparison of the July poll and the August poll finds that as more voters became familiar with Vance, his favorability rating decreased, from -7 to -11. In the two weeks between the two polls, more voters came to see Vance as conservative: +8 among voters overall, +9 with independents. And when it comes to broader perceptions of Vance, a throughline has emerged: the growing voter awareness of Vance is focused on his controversial stances (particularly around women, abortion, and parenthood) rather than more neutral aspects of his biography and persona, and voters’ negative associations with him have surged. Message testing shows that the most effective attacks against Vance center his extreme attitudes toward women and abortion.

Voters Know Vance More but Like Him Less

In the July poll, conducted right after Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate, Vance’s favorability was at -7: 32% of voters had a favorable view of him and 39% had an unfavorable view (with 30% saying they had a strongly unfavorable view). 29% of voters said they hadn’t heard of or didn’t have an opinion on him.

Two weeks later, when the August poll was conducted, the percentage of voters who said they hadn’t heard of or didn’t have an opinion on Vance had dropped to 19%. The increase in awareness of Vance was accompanied by a decrease in favorability, to -11: 35% of voters had a favorable view of Vance and 46% had an unfavorable view (with 36% saying they had a strongly unfavorable view).

Between the July poll and the August poll, Vance’s favorability dropped by 20 points among Latinos, 7 points among men, 8 points among voters ages 45-64, 6 points among non-college voters, 3 points among Black voters and voters ages 65 and up, and 2 points among younger voters (ages 18-44) and women. It increased by 4 points among independents.

Voter Views of Vance as Conservative Have Solidified

In the July poll, a modest majority of voters overall identified Vance as either “somewhat” or “very” conservative both in general and on social and economic issues specifically. However, fewer than 50% of independents saw Vance as conservative on all fronts. Just two weeks later, the majority of voters who see Vance as conservative expanded considerably, and a majority of independents had come to see him as conservative as well.

In our July poll, 57% of voters saw Vance as conservative (39% said very conservative), and 12% viewed him as moderate. 48% of independents saw him as conservative (31% said very conservative), with 18% saying he was moderate.

In the August poll, 65% of voters identified Vance as conservative (45% said he is very conservative) and 9% said he’s moderate. 57% of independents said he is conservative (with 36% saying very conservative) and 11% viewed him as moderate.

On social issues, 56% of voters, including 47% of independents, saw Vance as conservative in July. In the August poll, 63% said he is conservative on social issues, including 54% of independents. On economic issues, 56% of voters, including 47% of independents, saw Vance as conservative in July. In August, 61%, including 63% of independents, saw him as conservative on economic issues.

Voters Are Hearing More About Vance’s Extreme Views Than His Biography

In the July and August polls, respondents were presented with the same list of facts about Vance and asked if they had heard about them before. Voter awareness of most of the basics of Vance’s biography—for example, that he is a senator from Ohio, attended Yale Law School, served as a Marine, and worked in tech and finance—held steady between the two polls.

However, the share of voters who had heard about his most controversial stances increased. In July, 45% of voters had heard that Vance supports a national abortion ban; in the August poll, that figure was 51%. In July, 19% of voters were aware that Vance wants to end no-fault divorce; in August, it was 22%.

Vance Word Association: From Young, Smart, Bearded Marine to Weird, Extreme, Sexist, and Racist

In the July and August poll, we presented voters with a list of words (the same list for both, plus a few additions in August) and asked which they associated with Vance. In both polls, the word most commonly associated with Vance was “conservative” (44% in July, 43% in August).

In the July poll, of the other words most frequently chosen to describe Vance, about half were neutral or positive: “young” (26%), “bearded” (25%), “Marine (24%), “smart” (22%), and “military” (22%). Negative, commonly selected words included “flip-flopper” (24%), “far right” (24%), “opportunist” (21%), “out of touch” (20%), and “extreme” (20%). With the exception of “conservative,” none of the words was chosen by more than 26% of voters, suggesting less general familiarity with or well-formed views of Vance.

In the August poll, the most-selected words were overwhelmingly negative—and larger shares of voters chose them. After “conservative,” “anti-woman” (35%) and “weird” (34%) (both of which were not tested in July) led the pack. These were followed by “extreme” (33%, a 13-point increase from July), “out of touch” (32%, +12 since July), “sexist” (32%, +15 since July), “flip-flopper (31%, +7 since July), “far right” (31%, +7 since July), “racist” (26%, +9 since July), “radical” (24%, +9 since July), “bearded” (23%, -2 since July), and “opportunist” (23%, +2 since July).

Meanwhile, between July and August, the share of voters who associated Vance with words such as “young,” “smart,” “businessman,” “healthy,” “principled,” and “middle class” fell by 6 to 3 points each. The only positive word that saw an increase is “patriot”: 19% in August, compared to 14% in July.

Voters Are Most Bothered by Vance’s Opposition to Abortion and His Attacks on “Childless Cat Ladies”

In the August poll, we presented respondents with statements made by Vance in recent years and asked whether they were aware of them and the extent to which they were bothered by them.

At least 50% of voters were either “somewhat” bothered or bothered “a lot” by eight of the 11 statements we tested (the three that bother voters the least are all related to his past opposition to Trump). But, with the exception of Vance’s “cat ladies” comments, the share of voters who have heard of the statements is less than 50%. This indicates that Democrats have ample room to make more people aware of Vance’s extreme and controversial positions, in his own words—and that doing so will further raise alarm bells with voters.

Independent voters, are most likely to be “bothered a lot” by Vance opposing rape and incest abortion exceptions (47%), deriding “childless cat ladies” (43%), supporting making abortion illegal nationally (40%), stating that he hates the police (35%), claiming that Biden used fentanyl to “punish” those who didn’t vote for him, and saying that people should be given additional votes for each of their children (33%).

Black voters are “bothered a lot” by the national abortion ban statement (57%), the abortion exceptions statement (55%), the “childless cat ladies” statement (50%), the Biden-fentanyl statement (50%), and the call to replace “bureaucrats” and civil servants with “our people” (48%).

Latinos are most “bothered a lot” by the abortion exceptions statement (49%), the national abortion ban statement (45%), the “childless cat ladies” statement (43%), the call to give people votes for their children (37%), and the “bureaucrats and civil servants” statement (36%).

Women are most likely to be “bothered a lot” by the abortion exceptions statement (52%), the abortion ban and “childless cat ladies” statements (48%), the “bureaucrats and civil servants” statement (43%), the Biden-fentanyl statement (42%), and the “bureaucrats and civil servants” statement (41%).

Among younger voters (ages 18-44), the most bothersome statements are on abortion exceptions (46%), a national abortion ban (42%), “childless cat ladies (40%), firing bureaucrats and civil servants, accusing Biden of bringing in fentanyl, and giving votes to people for their children (32%).

The Most Persuasive Attacks on Vance Focus on His Extreme Attitudes Toward Women and Abortion

In the August poll, we tested 12 messages attacking Vance to determine which were the most persuasive to voters; about half of these were also tested in the July poll. A full list of the messages can be found in the appendix at the end of this press release.

In the August poll, the two most compelling messages focus on Vance’s extreme attitudes toward issues that affect women. The first (selected 72% of the time) zeros in on his opposition to rape and incest exceptions for abortion laws. The second (71%) highlights his comments arguing that women should stay in abusive marriages:

“As a candidate for Senate, JD Vance argued against the need for rape and incest exceptions in abortion laws. When asked during an interview whether abortion laws should include exceptions for rape and incest, Vance said he thinks ‘two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Vance is an anti-abortion extremist who wants to take freedom of choice away from American women.”
“JD Vance said that women who leave abusive men are ‘shift[ing] spouses like they change their underwear.’ He says that women leaving violent marriages has caused ‘a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy’ and thinks that they should’ve stayed in abusive relationships instead. We can’t have a Vice President who supports forcing women to stay in violent marriages.”

Notably, in the August poll, all of the next-most compelling messages (each of which was selected at least 60% of the time by voters overall) also revolve around the theme of Vance’s sexist and anti-abortion positions. The one exception is a message connecting Vance to the Project 2025 agenda:

“JD Vance is an extreme sexist who would be a disaster for women in America. He has compared abortion to slavery and advocates against no-fault divorce, which could trap women in violent marriages. Vance even described women without children as “miserable cat ladies” and working moms who need child care as bad mothers who aren’t “normal people.” We can’t have a misogynist in the White House.” (65%)
“Project 2025 is a radical, extreme plan for a second Trump term. Project 2025 includes plans to federally ban the abortion pill mifepristone, eliminate the Department of Education, remove nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender Americans, and ban porn. Vance says there are ‘good ideas in there.’ Trump hand-picked Vance so he could implement the extreme Project 2025 agenda.” (64%)
“JD Vance once compared abortion to slavery, saying, ‘There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery, and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society.’ We can’t have a Vice President who compares letting women control their own bodies to the greatest sin in our nation’s history.” (60%)
“JD Vance pretends like he wants abortion to be left up to the states, but he pushed for the federal government to let police access private medical records to track down women who crossed state lines to get an abortion. JD Vance is an extreme, anti-choice politician and we can’t have him in the White House.” (60%)

For comparison, in the July poll, the most compelling anti-Vance message was the abusive marriage statement (64%). This was followed by the Project 2025 message (58%), the abortion exceptions message (56%), a democracy-focused message about Vance saying that he wouldn’t have voted to certify the 2020 election and how he expressed sympathy for the January 6 rioters (53%), and a “new warzone” message centered around his support for deploying the US military to Mexico to go after drug cartels (53%). This suggests that, overall, as voters have heard more about Vance, his extreme attitudes about women and reproductive choice have overtaken his other positions as areas of concern.

Below is a table showing the most persuasive anti-Vance messages for independents across the July and August polls. The trend is almost identical to what we saw among voters overall.

ABOUT THE POLL

For this poll, Blueprint fielded two surveys. An August poll surveyed an online sample of 1,009 voters on Aug. 4, weighed to education, gender, race, survey engagement, and 2020 election results. This poll was conducted in English, and had a margin of error of ±3.5 percentage points. A July poll surveyed an online sample of 1,537 voters on July 21 and July 22, weighted to education, gender, race, survey engagement, and 2020 election results. The July survey was conducted in English, and had a margin of error of ±2.9 percentage points.

Full toplines are available here; full crosstabs are available upon request.

APPENDIX—FULL MAXDIFF RESULTS

Below are pairs of facts about JD Vance’s record. For each pair, say which fact you find more concerning.

PRESS CONTACTS

Alyssa Cass
alyssa@slingshotstrat.com
347-992-5006

Evan Roth Smith
evan@slingshotstrat.com
646-240-0096