As Election Day approaches, former President Donald Trump finds himself in a somewhat paradoxical situation: despite an unrelenting barrage of negative media coverage, his favorability ratings are improving.
Trump has been a lightning rod for controversy since he first entered politics, and throughout his campaigns, he’s often been “underwater,” meaning his unfavorable ratings exceeded his favorable ones. Yet, as his political career has shown, being underwater isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker.
In 2016, Trump was a whopping 26 points underwater according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, but that didn’t stop him from winning the presidency. Four years later, he was still underwater by 11 points, yet more popular than he had been in 2016, though he narrowly lost his re-election bid.
Now, in the lead-up to the 2024 election, Trump’s unfavorable rating exceeds his favorable rating by just 7 points—a significant improvement compared to his past campaigns. CNN analyst Harry Enten recently pointed out that Trump is more popular at this stage of the campaign than he was in 2016 or 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has seen the opposite trend. After initially enjoying favorable ratings during her first six months in office, Harris’s numbers began to sink as issues like inflation and border management took center stage.
By early 2022, she was 14 points underwater, and by the start of 2024, she was 20 points underwater. Harris saw a brief surge in popularity after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race in July, even rising above water by a single point in September. However, her momentum has since stalled, and she has slipped back underwater.
What’s particularly striking is how Trump has managed to boost his favorability despite overwhelmingly negative media coverage. According to the conservative Media Research Center, 89% of Trump’s media coverage in August was negative, while Harris enjoyed 84% positive coverage—the highest of any major-party nominee in history.
Yet Trump’s favorability continues to rise, suggesting that negative media attention might actually be working in his favor.
In an era where the media is one of the least-trusted institutions, it’s possible that Trump’s base—and even some swing voters—are viewing the relentless criticism as proof of bias, causing them to rally around him.
