More American voters trust Donald Trump to do a better job handling gun issues than Kamala Harris.
That’s according to the latest Fox News poll released Wednesday. It found the former President narrowly winning the trust of registered voters on gun policy over his opponent by a slim margin, with 50 percent favoring Trump and 47 percent favoring Harris. The finding represents a one-point bump on the issue in Trump’s favor since Fox last polled the question in July when voters gave him a two-point trust advantage on guns head-to-head with current President Joe Biden. The survey found that Trump led Harris by one percentage point overall.
The poll findings suggest gun politics could be a relative strength for the former President as he heads into a neck-and-neck race for the White House this November against an ascendant challenger, Kamala Harris. That advantage, however, has not been reflected in how the two candidates have campaigned on the issue to date.
Aside from briefly remarking at a press conference last week that the attempt on his life hadn’t changed his position against banning AR-15s, Trump has largely avoided the topic of guns altogether throughout his campaign. The 2024 GOP Platform document removed the party’s previous Second Amendment policy commitments, and he didn’t broach the topic at all during his record-long nomination acceptance speech at the RNC last month. Harris, meanwhile, has played up her gun control priorities at nearly every campaign event she’s held since replacing President Biden atop the Democratic ticket—though she has notably attempted to distance herself from her previous support for pushing a mandatory buyback of AR-15s. She also selected a running mate who has significantly shifted to the left on the issue over the course of his political career.
The poll found a sizeable gender gap in trust on guns among the two candidates. While Trump holds a 15-point trust advantage among men, women prefer Harris 52 percent to 43 percent. Black voters also overwhelmingly trust Harris more on the issue (68 percent to 29 percent), whereas White (52 percent to 44 percent) and Hispanic voters (50 percent to 46 percent) lean toward Trump.
The oldest voters surveyed, aged 65 and up, broke for Harris by five percentage points, while each bloc under the age of 45 leaned toward Trump on guns. Notably, six percent of Harris supporters and four percent of Trump supporters said they trusted the other candidate more on the issue.
While voters, by and large, give Trump the advantage on gun policy, the poll found the issue is not at the top of mind for most of them heading into November. Just three percent said guns would be the most important issue in deciding their vote for President, down from eleven percent when the survey asked the question exactly a year prior. Guns tied with crime as the least prioritized issue polled. The economy (38 percent), immigration (14 percent), and abortion (14 percent) led the pack.
Non-white men (seven percent), voters younger than 35 (six percent), and voters who strongly approve of President Biden (five percent) were the most likely to list guns as their most important deciding issue.
In addition to guns, registered voters give Trump the nod over his opponent on the issues of border security (58 percent to 39 percent), immigration (56 percent to 42 percent), foreign policy (52 percent to 45 percent), the economy (52 percent to 46 percent), and crime (51 percent to 46 percent). Meanwhile, they trust Harris to do a better job than Trump on climate change (57 percent to 39 percent), abortion (56 percent to 40 percent), health care (54 percent to 44 percent), uniting the country (50 percent to 45 percent), and Supreme Court nominations (50 percent to 47 percent).
Fox News conducted the poll between August ninth and twelfth. The company used a combination of Democratic pollster Beacon Research and Republican pollster Shaw & Company Research to reach out to voters. The poll sampled 1,105 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of ± three percentage points.
