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.
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- PRINCE HARRY VISITS COMMUNITY RECORDING STUDIO IN NOTTINGHAM,Image: 1035535438, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Paul Grover/Avalon
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- Nottingham, UK, 09 September 2025: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, visits the Community Recording Studio (CRS) in Nottingham.,Image: 1035538464, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Paul Grover/Avalon
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- Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, makes an appearance at the One805Live! benefit concert with proceeds benefitting first responders of Santa Barbara County. The benefit concert is held on Kevin Costner’s estate in Santa Barbara, USA, Saturday 20 September 2025.,Image: 1039018892, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JERRY PEREZ/Avalon
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- Third Annual World Mental Health Day Gala hosted by Project Healthy Minds held at Spring Studios,Image: 1044459714, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Prince Harry and Meghan Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Credit line: Udo Salters/Wenn/Avalon
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- 06/11/2025. Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales during the World Leaders Summit at COP30. The Prince prepares his speech whilst travelling to COP30 in Belém, Brazil.,Image: 1050762297, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no, Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- Bh, CA Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are seen leaving Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday party at Jeff Bezos’ home in Beverly Hills. Pictured: Prince Harry, eghan Markle BACKGRID USA 9 NOVEMBER 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Beverly Hills, CA Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were seen leaving Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday celebration held at Jeff Bezos’ lavish estate in Beverly Hills. Pictured: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 8 NOVEMBER 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: The Hollywood JR / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Prince Harry visit to the Community Recording Studio in Nottingham. The centre teaches film and video skills as well as music, giving young people access to professional equipment and industry figures Featuring: Prince Harry Where: Nottingham, United Kingdom When: 09 Sep 2025 Credit: Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR HELLO MAGAZINE**
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- Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex departs a visit to The Community Recording Studio in Nottingham, United Kingdom Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex Where: Nottingham, United Kingdom When: 09 Sep 2025 Credit: Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR HELLO MAGAZINE**
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- Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex visits Imperial College London’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies. Harry will receive an update on the work of the Centre for Injury Studies and its more recent focus on paediatric blast and crush injuries – demonstrating the research for child amputees and what is being done to maximise learning for conflict and disaster zones. He will meet senior academics and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisations (WHO) Centre For Injury Studies Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 10 Sep 2025 Credit: Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR HELLO MAGAZINE**
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- The Duke of Sussex leaves after a visit to Imperial College London’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies, at Sir Michael Uren Hub in White City, west London Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 10 Sep 2025 Credit: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales takes part in a game of volleyball with players from thee Levante Institute, a local beach volleyball school, at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, on day one of his visit to Brazil for the annual Earthshot Prize Awards Featuring: Prince William Where: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil When: 03 Nov 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
So 41% had no opinion on Harry (100-38-21). That’s actually the most important finding: not having an opinion, as a survey result, is just as valid as having a good or bad opinion.
Only about 1/5 of Americans (21%) have a negative opinion of Harry.
So whoever’s spinning this as bad news for Harry is full of it. Also, Harry’s done basically nothing this year that Americans would notice–the UK and Ukraine trips were great, but there was almost zero press here. And I’m sure YouGov’s methodology is suspect in other ways, although I’m too uninterested to check it out. So what is YouGov’s survey of aging royalists doing, exactly?
The most interesting thing about this silly article is what it misses out. Harry’s approval rate has fallen slightly in the US YouGov rankings but his approval rating is higher than William who is on 34% and Charles who is on 26%. Meghan’s ranking has increased by 7 points since the last poll and her approval rating is higher than Charles and William. So if I was William I would stay away from this poll where I have ‘plummeted’ 8 points since the last poll was taken and have a lower approval rating than my wife, brother and sister in law. Obviously it’s all silly and I’m not suggesting that anyone takes polling of British royals in the USA seriously but Royston’s article is badly written and doesn’t even mention that Harry and Meghan have higher approval ratings than ‘popular’ UK royals Charles and William. Kate also dropped 3 percent points in this silly poll. All these facts are easy to check on YouGov USA so why are they not in Royston’s article?
YouGov commission these polls because it is very, very cheap and effective marketing.
They just add a couple of questions to a survey they were going to send out anyway and suddenly there are a hundred press articles featuring the name ‘YouGov’. This is because lots of people are obsessed with royals and the press knows that so any news (good or bad) gets them clicks.
I agree. This is not a real poll. The numbers are meaningless and statistically invalid. I’m was in this business for decades and unless you are actually running for office and compared to other comparably situated players you get no info of value here. This is Lind of like those crazy surveys on what type of dessert people are going to serve on Thanksgiving and when something featuring cranberries comes out on top, eureka, it was commissioned by the Ocean Spray coop.
So YouGov is a UK based market research firm that gets responses from an invited group of users. Their methodology is said to be questionable. Let that sink in.
I think its to give willy cover so he can conquer America, and make in roads with what ever projects he has in mind
@Lili How’s that supposed to work when according to YouGov’s own data William’s US approval rating has fallen 8 points since the last poll and is lower than Harry’s approval rating? Harry is on 38% and William on 34%! How is this supposed to help William in any way?
this is bad news seeing as is Harry running for offic..Oh
As the saying goes polls are to shape public opinion not to reflect them. The press keep running these polls on H&M who don’t do public duties anymore to see if their smear campaign is working & to push propaganda that H&M are disliked. And on flip side keep telling us how popular Will & Kate are to persuade people that of course the monarchy should be supported in uk & abroad
Go and look at YouGov USA’s official data. Harry has a higher approval rating than William and Charles, so does Meghan. Harry at 38%, Meghan at 37%, William 34% and Charles 26%. Royston left that out of his article for some reason! For anyone interested Kim Kardashian (the woman with the billion dollar business empire) is polling at 18% on YouGov USA! It’s all very silly and pointless!
Well, hopefully this news calmed an overcooked egg .
@Jais You think William is calmed by a poll where he is polling at 34%, 4% lower than Harry? He has dropped 8% since the last poll but Royston doesn’t mention this. All the royals dropped in approval except Meghan who went up 7%. Charles is now more unpopular than he is popular. I wonder why Royston doesn’t want to tell us this?
LOL. Well, I’m gonna assume, if his team was smart, they just briefed him on the Harry part and left out the fine print. They probably showed him this article. Roysten knew what he was doing here unless the wider article contains that info. I’m not gonna click and find out though.
Fortunately he doesn’t read so his team can brief him on whatever they want.
Sometimes I think that these polls are used as pacifiers for Williams tantrums, but given that they are also talking about how William has “softened” on Harry coming back I think that these polls went out to ” convince” Harry he isn’t popular in the US and should come back. Because obviously commissioned polls know Harry’s lived experience better than he does. And how much money he’s earning, and how welcomed he is into spaces.
@Dee This article is just Royston trying to create a story about nothing. All the UK royals’ YouGov USA ratings have gone down since they were last polled. (Maybe related to the controversy about Andrew, I don’t know) Except Meghan whose approval rating has gone up 7 points. William and Charles are polling at 34% and 26% both lower than Harry. Another complete nothing burger!
Interesting that Harry’s Toronto trip was announced early. I think Harry is fed up with informing BC and have this information being denied by unnamed sources later on. So he simply let his hosts go public.
@Lili Thanks for the hearty laugh this morning. Conquer America? 😆 William couldn’t conquer school kids at volleyball without help.
Do they release the sample size? Because without that, these polls are pointless. You cannot extrapolate how “America” feels if you only ask 500 people.
What Royston is not telling you is that if you go to YouGov USA and look at the polling for famous people Harry and Meghan are polling fine compared to the average celebrity. They are polling better than William, Charles, and people like the Kardashian Jenners. I don’t think they have anything to worry about!
Exactly. And with a small sample size, an increase of 2% in Harry’s negatives could be well within the margin of error.
These polls don’t just come out of the blue the British press and in this case Newsweek pays YouGov to do these emotional support polls. I just think they’re idiotic and are done so the likes of Jack Royston can get paid at the end of the month. You would think with everything going with Andrew that the press would do a poll on his situation and the popularity of the Royal Family in the UK but they’re still stuck on Harry who according to them irrelevant.
First, you have to look at how YouGov collects data, then you know what to make of it. Absolutely nothing. But that doesn’t matter. They don’t need to conduct a survey at all. We know what nonsense and lies the right-wing press spreads. The world is watching, and the majority of people are intelligent. The others just shout loudly. They are not in the majority, and intelligent people have long since recognised the nonsense of these surveys.
Christ, if these jerks can only find another way to make money, besides invective and lies against the Sussexes, it would be fantastic. Sanitation workers? Receptionists? Truck drivers? There must be SOME real work in England, no?