There’s been a whirlwind of “bad press” in the past two weeks for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The Daily Mail is still milking the “Kris Jenner’s birthday party” faux-scandal, and royalists have been screaming 24-7 about every single thing Meghan does or says. While some of this is just the baseline hate campaign against Harry & Meghan launched many years ago, the past two weeks have seen a “surge.” The kind of manufactured “surge” organized to combat bad press for the left-behinds. Take your pick: the Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor fiasco, the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein revelations, the king’s poor health and the big one, Prince William’s Brazilian flop tour. William flopped so hard in Brazil, he needed another emotional-support poll to tell him that Harry is unpopular in America!!
Prince Harry has dropped 14 points in his U.S. popularity rating in 2025, bringing the size of his fan base down to its lowest ever level in one particular ratings system.
The Duke of Sussex was liked by 38 percent of Americans and disliked by 21 percent giving him a net approval rating of plus 17, across July, August and September, according to rolling quarterly data from YouGov Ratings.
At the start of the year, Harry was liked by 50 percent of U.S. adults and disliked by 19 percent giving him a net figure of plus 31, or some 14 points higher than the most recent data.
YouGov Ratings uses an unconventional polling methodology, which involves collecting survey responses throughout the year which are then grouped into quarterly results. While Harry’s net approval rating has been lower before, this is the lowest score he has recorded for the percentage of people who support him using historic YouGov Ratings data online, which tracks back to October 2020.
My question remains the same as it always has on all of these emotional-support polls: why is YouGov spending the time and money polling people on their feelings about the Sussexes in the first place? Harry and Meghan are not running for office, nor are they “publicly funded” in any way. YouGov is a British polling firm as well – why are they bothering with “asking Americans if they like Harry.” Surely there’s a better use for all of this time, money and effort. Unless the whole point is that William is f–king furious that his Brazilian trip will be remembered solely for his embarrassing volleyball photos and his “I can read, I swear” photos.
Meanwhile, it was just confirmed that Harry will be headed back to Canada in a few weeks. He will be the keynote speaker at the OREA Power House conference in Toronto on December 1. This sounds like a purely paid gig, but I’m glad he’s picking up those kinds of paychecks.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
