Walz better liked than Vance: Survey

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), tapped earlier this month as Vice President Harris’s running mate, is better liked than his Republican counterpart, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), according to a poll released Wednesday.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Research Center found that 36 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Walz, outpacing Vance’s 27 percent.

Both vice presidential hopefuls are still fairly unknown to a portion of the American electorate, however. The poll found that around 4 in 10 Americans do not know enough about the Minnesota governor, and 3 in 10 said the same about the first-term Ohio senator.

A higher number of adults have an unfavorable view of former President Trump’s running mate. The survey found that 44 percent of adults had an unfavorable view of Vance, much higher than the 25 percent that said the same about Walz.

As Walz is slated to address the party at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday evening, he will have an opportunity to boost his name ID as some portions of the party’s voters are unfamiliar with him.

Around 4 in 10 women and young adults under the age of 45 said they do not know enough to form an opinion about the governor, the poll found. Roughly half of Black adults and around 4 in 10 Hispanic adults said they were not familiar enough with Walz to say whether they have a positive view. 

Vance, who was picked as Trump’s running mate in mid-July, is generally well-liked within the Republican ranks. Around 6 in 10 GOP voters said they had a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Ohio lawmaker; roughly 2 in 10 Republicans said they had an unfavorable view of Vance, while one-quarter stated they do not know enough about him, the poll found. 

Walz’s higher favorability among respondents follows a recent ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos survey that found 39 percent of respondents had a “strongly” or “somewhat” positive view of the Minnesota governor. Around 32 percent said the same about Vance. 

The AP-NORC poll was conducted Aug. 8-12 among 1,164 adults and has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.