CNN
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Within the closing weeks of the 2024 marketing campaign, a lot of essentially the most mentioned information round former President Donald Trump revolved round fascism and french fries, in accordance with The Breakthrough, a CNN polling venture that tracks what common Individuals are literally listening to, studying and seeing concerning the presidential nominees. Conversations round Vice President Kamala Harris, in contrast, continued to focus largely round broader and extra typical tales about her marketing campaign.
The ballot, performed by SSRS and Verasight on behalf of a analysis crew from CNN, Georgetown College and the College of Michigan, was fielded from October 25-28. It was accomplished largely earlier than Trump’s rally final week at Madison Sq. Backyard, which drew explicit consideration for a racist joke about Puerto Rico included within the opening comedy act.
However the ballot discovered vital public consideration to tales about Trump holding an occasion to serve fries at McDonald’s and allegedly praising Hitler’s generals – in addition to making express feedback a couple of Corridor of Fame golfer.
“He talked about Arnold Palmer’s penis measurement and labored at a McDonalds for a number of hours,” wrote one one who answered the survey. “What a sentence!”
One other survey respondent wrote merely: “In terms of Donald Trump, you’ll be able to’t tune him or his concepts off.”
Inside the information maelstrom surrounding Trump, the tales that stood out to Individuals usually divided alongside partisan strains. Republicans have been extra probably than Democrats to say the McDonald’s occasion, in addition to Trump’s interview with distinguished podcast host Joe Rogan.
“Quite a few former officers within the 2016-2020 Trump administration are sounding alarms that Trump will dismantle democracy if he’s elected,” wrote one Democratic-leaning unbiased. “Trump has been known as out by average Republicans for saying he desires navy generals ‘like Hitler had.’”
Responses alongside these strains contributed to creating “democracy” the second-most frequent matter utilized in discussing Trump within the newest set of information, behind solely the broad class of “campaigning.” Roughly 11% of those that’d heard one thing about Trump up to now few days referenced phrases referring to democracy, up from solely about 1% within the earlier week’s knowledge, and effectively above its placement in any earlier week of the survey courting to this summer time.
When the survey requested respondents what they’d been listening to about Harris, the phrases “marketing campaign,” “rally,” “interview,” “polls” and “advert” all cracked the highest 10. So did references to her tax proposals. And the ballot discovered an uptick in mentions of the subject of abortion in relation to Harris, with a number of respondents noting her remarks about reproductive rights throughout a Houston rally, the place she appeared with Beyoncé.
General, 74% of Individuals reported having heard one thing not too long ago about Harris, and the same 71% about Trump – nonetheless considerably on the low facet in contrast with the shares who reported having heard concerning the candidates presently throughout the previous two presidential election cycles.
General, the sentiment behind the phrases Individuals utilized in describing what they’d heard about each Trump and Harris remained extra detrimental than optimistic, with the sentiment round Harris persevering with to dip from the earliest days of her marketing campaign. Sentiment doesn’t confer with emotions concerning the candidates personally, however about how positively or negatively the phrases and tones used to explain them are typically framed.
CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report.
