While only Americans were able to vote in the 2024 US presidential elections, the results will have global implications for years to come. In the lead up to the election, Zim Nwokora, Russell Kennedy and Rajesh Vasa ran an online poll to find out who those outside of the US thought would – and wanted to – win the presidential election. Of those who took the online poll, most predicted and wished for a victory for Vice President Kamala Harris, though there was considerable variation depending on respondents’ age, gender and country of residence.
- This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). The series has explored the 2024 US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).
In early October 2024, an interdisciplinary research team at Deakin University, Australia, launched an online poll in to find out who the world’s citizens would (if they could!) vote to be the next President of the United States.
Participants in the YouSay-WeSay (YSWS) survey were asked who they think will win and who they would prefer to win, as well as questions about their issue priorities. The poll closed on November 5, in line with the end of official voting in the United States (US). So, what did people outside of the US think would (and want to) happen in the 2024 US presidential election?
Why YouSay-WeSay?
Before getting to the findings, you might ask (quite reasonably) why should we care what non-American think about an election in which they could not vote? It is a fair point. But there was clearly a lot of interest in the election beyond America, as suggested by the amount of media coverage of it and engagement with US politics content during that time. People around the world cared about this election.
Applying a more academic lens, it can be argued that because the US is such an important player in the international system, everybody—non-Americans included—has some stake in the country’s presidential elections. This may have been even more so in 2024 when the election became a contest between ideologies, populism and progressivism, that are also locked in competition in many other countries.
The YouSay-WeSay (YSWS) survey was promoted on social media platforms with links provided to a project website which included, in addition to the survey, bespoke images and YouSay-WeSay branding reflecting the project’s themes.
An empathy based, user experience (UX) approach to the communication design encouraged participants to stay connected with the website for the duration of the election campaign. A periodically updated, interactive world map encouraged users to revisit the site to check the progress of voting from different countries. Participants could also view updated graphic data visualisations of responses to all survey questions, and analysis presented in a TV news style format.
The survey ultimately drew participation from 1082 respondents from 39 countries. While most respondents were Australia-based, we also received a number of responses from countries such as Canada, India and the UK. The sample was not recruited to be perfectly representative of populations across countries, which might be seen as a limitation. However, we distributed the survey on multiple platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter)), seeded through various networks to boost the chances that the overall sample, and some of the country-level data, could give a reasonable impression of patterns in international public opinion. Furthermore, in trialling this approach we aimed to take advantage of the widespread use of social media and its potential to enable political engagement, at a time when traditional polls are struggling to achieve participation and genuinely representative samples.
2024 election expectations and preferences
Although votes continue to be counted, we now know the outcome of the 2024 election – Donald Trump was the clear winner in the Electoral College, and the Republican ticket also won the popular vote.
However, for most of the campaign such a decisive outcome in favour of Trump seemed, to many commentators in the mainstream media, an unlikely outcome. Until the results started coming in the consensus view was that the candidates were ‘locked in an excruciatingly tight contest’, perhaps with Vice President Harris holding a slight edge.
Who did the YSWS survey respondents expect to win? In the direction of, but more decisive than, the mainstream media view, 62 percent of respondents expected a Harris victory while only 38 percent thought that Donald Trump would win.
Figure 1 – 2024 presidential election Expected Winner as Predicted by YSWS Respondents
Of course, people’s expectations are intimately linked to their preferences, either because of projection (i.e. people expect to see their preferences in the views of others) or preference falsification (i.e. people misrepresent their true preferences in public to avoid social ostracism, political or cultural pressures, which also implies that they do not trust that their polling data will be truly anonymous).
We asked respondents who they wanted to be the next president of the United States, giving them independent and minor-party options in addition to the Democratic and Republican candidates. 66 percent preferred Harris, 26 percent preferred Trump, and five percent preferred Jill Stein, the nominee of the Green Party.
Figure 2 – 2024 presidential election Candidate Preferences of YSWS Respondents
Those were the patterns across the whole YouSay-WeSay sample. Unpacking this we find respondents in most countries expected (and preferred) a Harris victory, but a Trump victory was predicted by respondents in 12 countries, including India, Nigeria and Kenya.
There were also clear gender and age divides. Women strongly favoured Harris, and men were more likely to prefer Trump. Most Trump support was found among the middle-aged while the strongest Harris supporters were the youngest (under 18) and oldest (65+) age cohorts.
Credit: Image created by Dat Tu and Tia Kapoor (Deakin University).
Excluding Australia
Most respondents were from Australia, no doubt reflecting the networks associated with Deakin University, and Australia leaned heavily in favour of Harris – about 64 percent of Australian respondents expected her to win, while 36 percent expected a Donald Trump victory.
So, we might ask, what would the YouSay-WeSay results look like if we excluded these Australian respondents? The answer is that Harris was expected to win by the slenderest of margins, 51 percent ahead of Trump on 49 percent.
Excluding Australia, international public opinion therefore looks like one of the competitive swing states in the official election, such as New Hampshire, which Harris won by three percent; or Georgia or Pennsylvania which were also closely fought, but which Harris lost by two percent.
Character and policy in respondents’ attitudes
To explore some of the reasons why international citizens ‘voted’ as they did, our survey asked respondents: ‘how important is character (e.g. integrity and personality) in your assessment of the candidates?’ We also asked: ‘how important are issues of policy in your assessment of the candidates?’
For most respondents, character and policy matter a great deal. 86 percent of respondents expressed their belief that character is either ‘extremely important’ or ‘very important’ in their evaluation of the candidates. 92 percent indicate that policy is either ‘extremely important’ or ‘very important’ in their evaluation of the candidates.
Figure 3 – Significance of Character and Policy in YSWS Attitudes
However, there are some differences within the sample based on candidate preference. Compared to Trump supporters, Harris supporters cared more about character, and they also cared more about policy. Interestingly, the respondents who cared most about policy tended to support a minor-party candidate like the Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
For the respondents who do care about policy, our survey also tapped their views about which policies were most important in their opinions of the election. Given a choice of 10 policy fields, the top three in our sample were: Democracy and human rights – 69 percent of respondents had this in their top three priorities; Gender and reproductive rights – which was prioritised by 51 percent of respondents; and Truth, facts and disinformation – which was prioritised by 51 percent of respondents.
While these were the overall trends, differences can be seen in the priorities of Harris supporters as compared to those of Trump supporters. For example, Table 1 below indicates, Trump supporters were more concerned with economic policy items.
Table 1 – Profile of Typical Harris and Trump Supporters
| Point of difference | Harris supporters | Harris supporters |
|---|---|---|
| ‘How much do you care about character?’ | A lot | Moderately |
| ‘How much do you care about policy?’ | A lot | Moderately |
| Top three policy Issues | 1. Democracy and human rights 2. Gender and reproductive rights 3. Environment | 1. Democracy and human rights 2. Gender and reproductive rights 3. Environment |
The YSWS survey aimed to provide insights into international public opinion on the US election. We found interesting patterns within the overall sample and across countries, showing that the US presidential election was perceived and interpreted rather differently depending on factors such as country of residence, gender, and age.
Looking to 2028
Emerging out of this research are several questions we believe are worth exploring further, including: how do the views of non-Americans compare with the attitudes of American voters, and how were perceptions of this election shaped by recent politics in a respondent’s country of residence?
Upon reflection the researchers see this project as a successful pilot to guide a scaled-up version for the next US election. The social media led, UX design strategy developed during this research was a world-first for such a global US election survey. The model has been established and the four-year lead time will enable the project to expand its social media reach and fine tune its engagement strategy ready for YouSay-WeSay 2028.
- The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable support of the YSWS student interns: Adhi Ajit, Tia Kapoor and Dat Tu.
- Subscribe to LSE USAPP’s email newsletter to receive a weekly article roundup.
- Please read our comments policy before commenting.
- Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
- Shortened URL for this post: https://wp.me/p3I2YF-exV
