Vice President Kamala Harris might have trouble winning over older voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where a new bipartisan AARP poll shows her losing voters ages 65 and older by 7 points overall over former President Donald Trump — and by 54 points when it comes to dealing with inflation and high prices.
That's because Trump's retrospective job rating is higher than Harris', mainly because of the economy, said Democrat pollster Jeffrey Listz of Impact Research, which joined with Republican pollster Bob Ward's firm Fabrizio Ward to conduct the survey for AARP, Politico reported Tuesday.
"It's been a core strength of Donald Trump's that he's got this branding around being a businessman and having been on 'The Apprentice,'" Liszt said. "When you look back at the job that people think that he did, his job rating is better than hers. And again, that's her core vulnerability and his core strength."
Overall, the AARP survey, conducted Sept. 17-24 of 1,398 likely voters, including an oversample of 470 likely voters aged 50 and up, showed the two candidates in a virtual tie.
The poll's margin of error was 4 percentage points overall and 3.5 percentage points for voters 50 and older.
Harris took the poll by two points, coming in at 49% over 47% for Trump, with 2% picking other candidates and 3% remaining undecided.
The survey is the first AARP conducted in Pennsylvania after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race this summer.
In the last poll, taken in April, Biden was down by 5 points overall, and among voters ages 18-49 trailed Trump by one point.
Harris, in comparison, is leading Trump by 14 points in the younger age group.
Harris also outperformed Biden among independents, Democrats, women, suburban voters, rural voters, and among voters without a college degree.
However, she slipped among seniors over 50, which Biden was holding by 1 point.
"Harris' biggest weakness is older voters," Ward, whose firm also polls for Trump's campaign, commented. "It is the biggest share of the electorate, and she is behind."
According to the poll, 50% of the poll's likely voters said they retrospectively approve of Trump's job performance while he was president, with 49% disapproving.
But for Harris, just 45% said they approve of the job she's done as vice president, with 52% disapproving.
Liszt pointed out that the numbers were opposite of the candidates' popularity numbers, in which Trump was shown underwater by 7 points compared to 3 for Biden.
He added that Trump is being challenged by Harris' performance with independents and a grouping of younger voters and older Black voters, which had been skeptical of Biden.
Ward said that if Trump expands his margins with older voters, especially older women, "he's got a good chance to pull ahead in this race."
Meanwhile, the poll showed Harris ahead by 19 points among women, while Trump led with men by 16 points.
However, the candidates were tied among female voters older than 50.