Nearly all Americans claim gun policy is a factor in their 2024 vote for President.
Those are the results of the latest CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday. The poll had Kamala Harris three points ahead of Donald Trump nationwide, and the pair tied in battleground states. It found that 88 percent of likely voters rated guns as a factor in how they planned to vote, with only 12 percent saying guns weren’t a factor at all in their vote.
Gun policy ranked in the middle of the pack when it came to issue importance. More respondents said guns were a major factor in their vote than abortion or the border. However, issues like the economy and the state of democracy ranked higher in the minds of voters than gun policy.
The poll shows American voters still consider gun policy a top issue, though not the very top. It indicates guns could play a significant role in the election, especially with a clear contrast between the two candidates. It also highlights the Harris and Trump campaigns’ diverging strategies on the issue, with the former doubling down on new restrictions and the latter staying mostly mum in recent weeks.
The CBS poll might help explain why Harris has been more consistent in prioritizing guns during her short time at the top of the ticket. Democrats were 13 points more likely to say gun policy was a major factor in their vote than Republicans. Liberals were nine points more likely than Conservatives to say the same. Black voters were the most likely to identify gun policy as a major factor at 70 percent.
Still, polling on gun policy has been limited in recent months. And most pollsters tend to lump guns in with crime or violence, which further complicates understanding how the American public views the issue. The most recent Ipsos poll found 22 percent of Americans view “crime or gun violence” as one of the top three most important issues facing the country, with five percent saying it was the single most important. The latest poll from The Washington Post and ABC News, also conducted by Ipsos, saw 63 percent of registered voters view “gun violence” as either very important or “one of the single most important” issues.
Polling comparing Harris and Trump on guns has been sparse as well. The two most recent polls show the candidates fairly close on the issue. The most recent Fox News poll found 50 percent of registered voters thought Trump would handle guns better than Harris, while 47 percent believed the opposite. The Post/ABC poll found 42 percent trusted Harris to handle gun violence, and 37 trusted Trump.
Overall, the CBS poll puts Harris ahead of Trump by three points. Her ascent to the top of the ticket has changed the Democrats’ fortunes, at least in the short term. President Joe Biden was trailing Trump by 1.5 points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls the day he dropped out. As of Tuesday, Harris flipped that into a 1.5-point lead over Trump in the same average.
YouGov conducted the CBS poll among 3,258 registered voters across the country between August 14th and 16th. It has a margin of error of 2.1 points in either direction.
