What Americans heard about Trump in the final week of the presidential campaign: Fascism and French fries

()— In the final weeks of the 2024 United States presidential campaign, much of the most talked about news about former President Donald Trump revolved around fascism and French fries, according to The Breakthrougha polling project that tracks what average Americans are listening to, reading and watching about the presidential candidates. Conversations about US Vice President Kamala Harris, in contrast, continued to focus primarily on broader, more mainstream stories about her campaign.

The survey, conducted by SSRS and Verasight on behalf of a research team from , Georgetown University and the University of Michigan, was conducted October 25-28. It was largely completed before Trump’s rally last week at Madison Square Garden, which drew particular attention for a racist joke about Puerto Rico included in the opening comedy act.

But the poll found significant public attention to stories about Trump hosting a McDonald’s fries-serving event and allegedly praising Hitler’s generals, as well as making explicit comments about a Hall of Fame golfer.

“He talked about Arnold Palmer’s penis size and worked at McDonald’s for a few hours,” wrote one survey taker. “What a phrase!”

Another respondent wrote simply: “When it comes to Donald Trump, you can’t turn him off or his ideas.”

Within the whirlwind of news surrounding Trump, the stories that stood out to Americans often divided along partisan lines. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to mention the McDonald’s event, as well as Trump’s interview with the Noted podcast host Joe Rogan.

“Numerous former Trump Administration officials from 2016-2020 are warning that Trump will dismantle democracy if elected,” wrote one Democratic-leaning independent. “Trump has been criticized by moderate Republicans for saying he wants military generals ‘like Hitler had.’”

Responses along those lines contributed to “democracy” being the second most common topic used when discussing Trump in the latest data set, behind only the broad category of “campaign.” About 11% of those who had heard something about Trump in recent days mentioned words related to democracy, up from just about 1% in the previous week’s data, and well above their position in any previous week of the survey since this summer.

When the survey asked participants what they had heard about Harris, the words “campaign,” “rally,” “interview,” “polls” and “announcement” were in the top 10. Also the references to his tax proposals. And the survey found an increase in mentions of the abortion issue in relation to Harris, with several respondents pointing to her comments on reproductive rights during a rally in Houston, where she appeared with Beyoncé.

Overall, 74% of Americans reported having heard something recently about Harris, and a similar 71% about Trump, still somewhat low compared to the proportions who reported hearing about the candidates at this time during the previous two presidential election cycles. .

Overall, the sentiment behind the words Americans used to describe what they had heard about both Trump and Harris remained more negative than positive, with sentiment around Harris continuing to decline from the early days of her campaign. Sentiment does not refer to feelings about candidates personally, but rather how positively or negatively the terms and tones used to describe them tend to be framed.

‘s Jennifer Agiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report.