Americans anxious, frustrated about presidential campaign, AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON — Most Americans are feeling a lot of emotions heading into Election Day, but excitement is not one of them.

A new poll from The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that about 7 in 10 Americans report feeling anxious or frustrated about the 2024 presidential campaign, and a similar share say they're interested.

Only about one-third say they feel excited.

There's a broad feeling of uncertainty hanging over the 2024 presidential contest during the last week of the campaign. The race is competitive nationally and in key swing states, according to recent polls, with neither Democrat Kamala Harris nor Republican Donald Trump showing a measurable advantage.

At the same time, the candidates have offered closing arguments that are in stark contrast with each other, with Harris arguing that Trump is obsessed with revenge and his own personal needs, while Trump referred to Harris at a rally on Sunday night as “a trainwreck who has destroyed everything in her path.”

Some groups are even more anxious than they were four years ago, even though that election took place in the midst of a deadly pandemic.

In 2020, an AP-NORC poll found that about two-thirds of Americans were anxious about the election, which is not statistically significant from the new result. But for partisans, anxiety is dialed a little higher.

About 8 in 10 Democrats say anxious describes how they are feeling now, up slightly from around three-quarters in the last election. About two-thirds of Republicans are anxious, a moderate uptick from around 6 in 10 in 2020.

Independents, by contrast, haven't shifted meaningfully, and they're also feeling less worried than Democrats or Republicans. About half say they are anxious, similar to the finding in 2020.

Other emotions have gotten more intense compared to past election cycles, including excitement. About one-third of Americans report feeling excited about the 2024 campaign, up from around one-quarter in 2016. But a majority of Americans say they are not excited about this year's race.

One thing has stayed fairly constant, though: Americans' level of frustration with the campaign. Roughly 7 in 10 Americans say frustrated describes their emotional state, similar to 2020.

For those Americans, though, there is light on the horizon — soon, the election will be over.

The poll of 1,233 adults was conducted Oct. 24-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.