MedPage Today Readers Backed Harris, Survey Shows

While former President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris was the clear choice among MedPage Today readers.

Of 1,810 respondents who completed the MedPage Today election survey, 71.2% said they would vote for Harris in the 2024 presidential election. President-elect Trump received 24.7% of the votes in the survey. Another 4.1% of respondents said they did not plan to vote for either candidate.

While MedPage Today is a healthcare professional-focused publication, the survey is open to all readers. Still, many survey respondents are believed to work in healthcare, as physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and others.

In some 240 comments on the survey, respondents explained their choices. Most shared their preference for Harris or their dislike of Trump.

Commenter Tom_Habib_PhD wrote, “Thousands of mental health professionals (including his niece) have come up with the following diagnoses for President Trump. Narcissistic personality disorder with anti-social features. Also, …a learning disability in reading and early stages of dementia. We would not let physicians, pilots, nuclear plant operators work with these diagnoses but many people think it’s OK to become POTUS. What could go wrong? Shesh.”

Commenter Henry_Toyin_Akinbi said, “Disrupting an imperfect medical system is not a good qualifier for presidency. Trump needs to prove he has better ideas.”

And Nancy_Sez wrote, “There is no equivalency. It is a clear choice as stark as light verses [sic] dark, good verses [sic] evil, democracy verses [sic] autocracy.”

Still, other commenters shared their reasons for supporting Trump, including James_Hamilton: “Democrats have ruled 12 out of the past 16 years. Our economy is horrible, foreign countries are taking advantage of us, groceries are almost unaffordable as are medications many seniors desperately need. TRUMP all the way.”

Several commenters took issue with the characterization that Trump’s supporters are often less educated.

A commenter with the username Lil pointed out that “Medical educated folks subscribe to MedPage. No surprise Harris is way ahead. Statistics show educated folks, regardless of gender or race, support Harris. It’s the uneducated white folks mainly males who support Trump.”

Other commenters disagreed, including Jennifer_L: “If degrees equal educated, then this educated and minority woman is voting for Trump, again.”

And Beth_Brown wrote, “Hardly, I am probably more educated (four master’s degrees, a doctorate, and seminary) than most and I support Trump. Your characterization is false.”

Finally, some commenters shared perspectives on the election from outside the U.S., including Richard_van_der_Jagt who wrote, “As a Canadian, I can’t believe that Americans would be fool enough to elect a convicted felon, already impeached, who survives on lies and who wants to be a plutocrat close to Putin and Kim Jong Un.“

The results of the survey showed more support for the Democratic candidate than previous MedPage Today election surveys. In 2020, 60.89% of respondents said they would vote for then-Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden. Former President Trump received 30.94% of the vote. The 2020 survey also had less overall participation with 808 responses, compared to nearly 2,000 this year.

In 2016, 5,412 readers responded to multiple election surveys. Of those, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the most combined votes at 46.99%. Then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 43.37%, followed by 3.51% for none of the above, and 3.1% for undecided.

In an election with strong third-party voting, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein each received under 2% of the votes in the 2016 survey.

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