# Poll: What's your initial feeling about Harris versus Trump? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** trump, kamala-harris\ **Created:** [July 23, 2024, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661 "2024-07-23T07:13:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/1 "2024-07-23T07:13:18Z")
Just a quick poll to take the board’s political temperature in the immediate aftermath of the Big News. You can choose one option. Note that there are sub-sections, grouped by political leaning, to allow more representative expression of the mindset. Note also that (if I did this correctly) responses are anonymous so “shy Trump” respondents shouldn’t worry about outing themselves. _Poll ([view on site](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/1))_ Feel free to elaborate your (personal!) feelings below, but there are already lots of debate threads for hashing out the issues against one another, so none of that here, please. This is intended only as a snapshot of the board’s feelings at this very early stage of the (suddenly new) campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/2 "2024-07-23T07:26:06Z")
My personal feeling is that if this were a more sane planet, in a race between a Prosecutor and a Felon the Republicans would be rooting for the Prosecutor. I am hoping that her law and order background helps against the inevitable “She is a far-left candidate!!” crap that has begun to show up. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/3 "2024-07-23T08:05:24Z")
I’m cautiously optimistic, mostly because of the reactions from both sides. I do have to remember that Harris in 2024. And that she has at least one of the same downsides Clinton had–being a woman. Though the fact that Twitter was full of people going after Clinton when Biden stepped down hopefully shows they have trouble transferring that over to a new person. But there is no doubt this is a risky move. This is someone who lost to Biden in the primaries in 2020. And there are people who would vote for Biden who will not vote for Harris. They are very much counting on reinfusing the race with enthusiasm from this, rather than significant changes in policy. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/4 "2024-07-23T08:10:13Z")
Harris is considerably more intelligent and ultimately more principled and confident than Trump. She’s also female and black, two things that scare the shit out of Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/5 "2024-07-23T08:27:48Z")
My own personal feeling is to lean, sadly, to the skeptical/doubtful side regarding Harris’s chances. I’ve basically given up on the US as a functioning democracy. The average voter is an ignorant moron, the mass media are fundamentally incapable of reporting fairly and properly educating and informing the voting populace, the courts at all levels have been infected with fascist hacks and far-right activists, and the political culture is deeply and irretrievably corrupt. The result should be, as the expression goes, a no-brainer — but in actual practice things turn out differently when the country in fact has no brain. We’ll still give money and support to Harris’s campaign, and nothing would make me happier than to see MAGA crushed into political hamburger, but I’m not getting my hopes up about its likelihood. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/6 "2024-07-23T08:43:43Z")
I’m an outsider to all of this (and generally left-leaning) but yeah. In a sane world, this shouldn’t even be a contest that takes place. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/7 "2024-07-23T08:50:52Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > She’s also female and black, two things that scare the shit out of Trump. The RW Firehose of Shit is already spouting the same nonsense they did with Obama: saying “She’s not _really_ black!” to the black voters and “She’s _too_ black!” to the white ones. Plus there is just **so much** angry sexualized misogyny about her as well, bringing back the “Joe and the Ho” rhetoric in force. The fact that she triggers them all so badly is a good sign in a way, in that it shows that they see her as a threat. How that will affect the ultimate result - I dunno. But the right are clearly terrified of an Obama-level black election turnout. ---
**Author:** ![DETXL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/detxl/32/19366_2.png) [@DETXL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DETXL)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/8 "2024-07-23T10:53:12Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I’m cautiously optimistic, mostly because of the reactions from both sides. I said “extremely enthusiastic and confident” but it’s more like extremely enthusiastic and _mostly_ confident. For me, it’s also the reaction from both sides, but honestly a lot of it is the reaction from the right. You would have imagined that this was a scenario Trump’s campaign had anticipated, and would have a coherent response immediately ready for. Instead they seem, inexplicably, to have assumed that they could continue to argue Biden is unqualified to run and have zero effect on any voters or polls until election day. You might also have imagined that, if they were really going to try to make “this unfairly and undemocratically disenfranchised millions of people” a core argument, they might have waited to see what the response was. And not, say, started lamenting the travesty of the Unheard Biden Primary Voter only to be upstaged by an immediate outpouring of support and a nine-figure fundraising haul that makes them look ridiculous. But instead that was the best they could come up with out of the gate, with a side of turning the circular firing squad on Mike Pence. I predict a pivot from “nobody wanted Harris” to “so many Democrats support Harris it must be a DNC Elite Conspiracy” to be amplified via their influencers in “alternative” social media channels, but what I’ve seen already has gotten zero traction amongst actual leftists, including the angry dem-soc millennials who make up like 90% of my friend group. The longer the far right spins its wheels, and in particular the longer they seethe impotently as their Let’s Go Brandon outlets decay into Spirit Halloween stores, the more my confidence will build. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/9 "2024-07-23T16:41:00Z")
You can be a centrist and also support one of the candidates. You don’t have to lean left to recognize Trump is garbage and the couch fucker he picked isn’t any better. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/10 "2024-07-23T16:58:22Z")
I’m centrist and I think Kamala will absolutely wipe the floor with Trump. It will be utter demolition in November. To the point where I think the Democrats ought to shift money towards the downballot races rather than the presidency, which is pretty much a lock by now. Of course, they should spend on both, but if they had to choose, the downballots are more important at this point. If I were the DNC chairman, I would go on stage and get the crowd to chant “Guaranteed! Guaranteed! Guaranteed!” on national TV during the Democratic convention. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/11 "2024-07-23T17:03:49Z")
I like Harris. I think she would do a very good job as president. She’s smart and has a solid ethic for her service. I just keep expecting better from her in debates and she usually disappoints. I think that is just an overabundance of caution so she comes across a little flat. I realize that is just performative but I think it matters this time around. It seems Trump now wants to skip the next debate so it might not matter and it will be on Trump for wimping out. Make no mistake, she’s got my vote fer sure. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/12 "2024-07-23T17:16:36Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > If I were the DNC chairman, I would go on stage and get the crowd to chant “Guaranteed! Guaranteed! Guaranteed!” on national TV during the Democratic convention. You might as well chant “Don’t go vote! Don’t go vote!” ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/13 "2024-07-23T17:26:31Z")
After the Republican convention last week, they were prepared to go on the offensive, seeing the weakened Democrats in a state of growing chaos after the disastrous June debate. But in an instant, the game changed - now the Republicans are forced to go on defense. It’s like they had the Democrats on the ropes but took an unexpected upper-cut that has sent them backward. If Harris can continue to harness the current energy and enthusiasm, and deliver more blows to the mouth of the Republicans, there is a real chance to win. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/14 "2024-07-23T18:03:07Z")
Rope-a-dope! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/15 "2024-07-23T19:54:33Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > To the point where I think the Democrats ought to shift money towards the downballot races rather than the presidency, which is pretty much a lock by now. Of course, they should spend on both, but if they had to choose, the downballots are more important at this point. That is more or less the job of the DNC. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/16 "2024-07-23T20:04:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > To the point where I think the Democrats ought to shift money towards the downballot races rather than the presidency, which is pretty much a lock by now. Gosh I wish I had your certainty. I will remain skeptical at least until the polls show a clear shift in her direction — which hasn’t happened yet, though there are encouraging signs. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/17 "2024-07-23T20:06:35Z")
> [@DETXL](#): > > I said “extremely enthusiastic and confident” but it’s more like extremely enthusiastic and _mostly_ confident. This describes me. I’m actually invested in this now, enthusiastic because of the shakeup. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/18 "2024-07-23T20:47:58Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > But in an instant, the game changed - now the Republicans are forced to go on defense. It’s like they had the Democrats on the ropes but took an unexpected upper-cut that has sent them backward. Oh Yeah, this removed their two biggest yelling points: 1. Sleepy Joe is too old 2. The Biden Crime Family/Hunter Biden ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/19 "2024-07-23T20:50:25Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > This describes me. I’m actually invested in this now, enthusiastic because of the shakeup. I’m with you both but really, what is the alternative? Maybe I didn’t say that right. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661/20 "2024-07-23T20:52:03Z")
I want to see nonstop Democratic chants about “too old! too old!” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-whats-your-initial-feeling-about-harris-versus-trump/1004661.md?page=2)