Walz’s Approval Rating Surging While Vance’s Circles the Drain. A real tale of two running mates.

By Bess Levin, August 9, 2024

New poll results that should surprise absolutely no one show Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s approval ratings surging while Ohio senator JD Vance’s have plummeted.

A YouGov survey from August 8, two days after Walz was announced as Kamala Harris’s running mate, shows the governor scoring a net favorability rating of +11, up 10 points from a YouGov survey conducted last month. Meanwhile, Vance’s net favorability from an August poll conducted by Marist came in at -9; a week prior, a YouGov survey put him at -6.

It’s not hard to see why people have positive views of Walz and are increasingly repelled by Vance. The former gives off serious Big Dad Energy, believes in stuff like abortion access, workers rights, paid family leave, and affordable housing; as governor, he ensured school children would not go hungry. Then there’s Vance, who has suggested people should stay in violent marriages for the sake of their kids, and that not having kids means a person has no “direct stake” in the country and is more likely to be a sociopath.

Speaking at a rally in Philadelphia earlier this week, Walz told the crowd that Vance shares Donald Trump’s “dangerous and backward agenda for this country,” adding, “JD Vance literally, literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the project 2025 agenda. Like all regular people I grew up with in the Heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. Come on. That’s not what Middle America is. And I gotta tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy. That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up."