Fox News Power Rankings: With VP picks, Harris and Trump miss opportunities to broaden their appeal

Trump still has an edge, but the race is closer than ever. That is the outlook in the first Fox News Power Rankings with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket and two new running mate picks.

The race to be 'someone else'

When this cycle began, most voters didn’t want President Biden or former President Donald Trump in the race.

In a Fox News survey conducted weeks after the midterms, 64% of voters said they wouldn’t like to see Biden run for re-election, and 58% said they weren’t happy about Trump running either.

Throughout his campaign, reliably blue voters drifted away from Biden, and he lagged with independents.

The top reason was clear and consistent: voters thought he was too old for a second term.

Last month, the president acquiesced to his doubters and stepped out of the race. On Monday, Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Meanwhile, Republicans have been rallying around Trump. 

But the former president has proven there is a ceiling in his level of support, particularly with independents.

Collectively, the polls suggest that the winner of the 2024 presidential race could be the candidate who reminds voters least of Biden or Trump.

In other words, Harris and Trump each have up to 90 days to prove they can be "someone else."

The type of "someone else" matters. 

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS NAMES MINNESOTA GOV. TIM WALZ AS HER RUNNING MATE

A majority of Americans say Biden is too liberal. In June, 56% of adults said they felt that way, and so did 56% of independent voters.

Trump’s "MAGA" movement is also unpopular. In a survey last year, only 24% of Americans said they had a positive view of the movement, and only 12% of independents agreed.

That makes both candidates’ vice presidential picks missed opportunities.

There is also little time left in the race. Most Americans now cast a ballot before election day and early voting kicks off in 30 days.

After a sleepy start, America is sprinting to the finish line.

Eliminating the age problem gives Harris a strong start, but Walz doesn’t help her 

If Harris’ goal is to not remind voters of Joe Biden, she starts with a clear advantage. The vice president is 22 years younger than her boss.

That has helped wipe out Biden’s deficit in national polls.

After the presidential debate, Biden had support from 42% of registered voters in an average of polls, with Trump at 49% (NYT, WSJ). That is a 7-point gap.

In the first polls from the same outlets after Harris became the likely nominee, she improved to 47%, with Trump still at 49% (NYT, WSJ). That is a race within the margin of error.

We know age was the driver of this upswing because when these polls were conducted, Harris hadn’t changed anything else.

Tuesday, she chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Walz has supported a long list of socially progressive policies. He signed a law that made illegal immigrants eligible for drivers’ licenses, and another that, per a memo circulated by allies, made Minnesota a "Trans Refuge State."

He has also faced criticism for his slow response to rioting, looting, and arson after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

With reporting over the weekend that Harris had narrowed her choices to Walz or moderate Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who had a 61% favorability rating in a must-win swing state, Harris’ decision seems unhelpful to her campaign.

Walz is unlikely to hurt the campaign either.

His signature policies include expansions of paid family and medical leave, legislation protecting abortion rights, education funding and drug affordability. 

Those positions are all in line with Biden and Harris’ agenda over the last four years and are popular in battleground states.

Democrats are also excited about his "folksy" demeanor, military service, and working-class background.

And while there is no polling evidence so far that Walz has outsized appeal with Midwestern voters, he doesn’t underperform with them either. In the midterms, he won re-election by seven points.

The problem is more that Walz doesn’t help Harris win over independent voters who already say that Biden is too liberal.

Trump can't redefine himself, and Vance doesn’t help either

Meanwhile, while voters prefer Trump on policy, he must show independents that he is a more honest and temperate man than he was in his first term.

Surviving a terrifying assassination attempt gave Trump an opportunity to do this, and surrogates were eager to play up the "changed" Donald Trump throughout the Republican National Convention.

An uneven convention speech and an aggressive appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago last week proved Trump is still Trump.

His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has been unhelpful so far.

Vance earned his spot on the ticket because he was the most aligned to Trump and the "MAGA" movement out of all the leading candidates. The polling shows that "MAGA" has limited appeal outside the Republican base.

Vance has also had to defend several comments he made about women.

In a 2021 interview, he called some Democratic politicians "childless cat ladies," and the same year, said rape and incest were possible circumstances of a child’s birth that society views as "inconvenient." Vance said he meant society sometimes sees babies as inconvenient in a Fox interview last week.

Like Walz, Vance brings a Midwestern background to the ticket.

Republicans are excited about his ability to empathize with working-class voters who propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and say his military experience will be an asset.

He has cosponsored bipartisan legislation to lower the price of insulin and make banks more accountable when they fail.

FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: IS KAMALA HARRIS UNBURDENED BY WHAT HAS BEEN?

And in the midterms, Vance won his race by about six points against one of the strongest Democratic candidates in decades.

Overall, Trump’s combative personality and the Vance pick are not quite the strategic mistakes that some analysts say they are.

The "MAGA" movement excites core Republican voters, and firing up the base was a key factor in Trump’s 2016 win.

But depressing Democratic turnout was also key to that victory. The polling now shows that Harris has fired up her base too.

Trump has an edge in the forecast, but it’s a very close race

With Harris at 47% and Trump at 49%, the national race is very tight.

Harris’ five-point improvement over Biden comes from upswings in two of three key groups that had drifted away from the incumbent president.

Harris has flipped the race with young voters. Biden had support from 40% of voters aged 18-29 after the debate; the vice president now sits at 56%.

She has similarly improved with Hispanic voters, increasing her support from 41% after the debate to 57% now.

Trump continues to perform much better with Black voters than he did in 2020.

That year, the Fox News Voter Analysis had just 8% of African American or Black voters supporting Trump. He pulls 23% among registered voters in the same groups now, nearly tripling his support.

Watch that number as election day draws closer. There is evidence in past cycles that many Black voters "come home" to the Democrats, but the margin could determine the winner of the election.

With Democrats re-energized, Harris looks stronger in battleground Minnesota

Only one competitive state moves further into Democratic territory in this forecast, and it’s Walz’s home, Minnesota.

Harris already had an advantage in this reliably blue state.

In a set of Fox News battleground state polls from late July, Harris had support from 52% of voters in Minnesota, 6 points above Trump at 46%.

That is just about the same as Biden’s vote share in 2020.

Minnesota has also voted for Democrats in every election since 1972.

Trump rallied there last week, and his campaign announced they were opening more field offices there in June, so it remains in a "competitive" category.

But unless there is a future drop in Harris’ support, she is in the driver’s seat. Minnesota moves from Lean D to Likely D.

A big month ahead for the Power Rankings

This is the first of several Fox News Power Rankings forecasts in August.

Look for the first Senate, House, and governor forecasts for 2024 starting Monday next week.

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Then, on Sunday, Fox News Democracy 24 special coverage begins for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

That’s also the date for the next Power Rankings Issues Tracker, Fox’s polling tracker for the issues and candidate qualities that will define this race.