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

Out of 1,810 respondents who completed MedPage today election poll71.2% said they would vote for Harris in the 2024 presidential election. President-elect Trump received 24.7% of the vote in the poll. Another 4.1% of respondents said they did not plan to vote for either candidate.

while MedPage today is a publication focused on healthcare professionals, the survey is open to all readers. However, many respondents to the survey are believed to work in health care, such as doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, and others.

In about 240 survey comments, respondents explained their choices. Most shared their preference for Harris or 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 antisocial features. We wouldn’t let doctors, pilots, nuclear plant operators work with these diagnoses, but a lot of people think it’s okay to become POTUS. What could go wrong?

Comment Henry_Toyin_Akinbi said: “Disrupting an imperfect medical system is not a good qualifier for the presidency. Trump has to prove that he has better ideas.”

And Nancy_Sez wrote: “There is no equivalence. It is a clear choice as hard as light verses (sic) dark, verses good (sic) evil, verses democracy (sic) autocracy”.

However, other commentators shared their reasons for supporting Trump, including James_Hamilton: “Democrats have led for 12 of the last 16 years. Our economy is horrible, foreign countries are taking advantage of us, food is almost unaffordable as well as medicine that many elderly people desperately need. . TRUMP all the way.”

Several commentators have disputed the characterization that Trump supporters are often less educated.

A commenter with the username Lil pointed out that “People trained in medicine subscribe to MedPage. Not surprisingly, Harris is way ahead. Statistics show that educated people, regardless of gender or race, support Harris. Uneducated Whites, Mainly Males, Support Trump”.

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

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

Finally, some commenters shared perspectives on non-US elections, including Richard_van_der_Jagt who wrote: “As a Canadian, I can’t believe Americans would be stupid enough to elect a convicted felon, already indicted , who survives on lies and who wants to be a plutocrat close to Putin and Kim Jong Un.“

Poll results showed more support for the Democratic nominee than previously MedPage today electoral polls. In 2020, 60.89% of respondents said they would vote for Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden. Former President Trump received 30.94% of the vote. The 2020 survey also saw lower overall participation, with 808 responses compared to nearly 2,000 this year.

In 2016, 5,412 readers responded to several electoral polls. Of those, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the most combined votes, with 46.99 percent. 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 a strong third-party vote, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein each received less than 2 percent of the vote in the 2016 poll.