New figures reveal Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘really difficult position’

New polling has painted a surprising picture of what people really think of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the Prince and Princess of Wales.

COMMENT

What do one-time jailbird actress Felicity Huffman, country singer Lyle Lovett and Kate, the Princess of Wales have in common?

Oh sure, they all have flowing locks and could probably do a joint Pantene commercial – but they are all also more popular in the US than Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

On paper, if you’re doing back-of-a-beer-coaster calculations, the US of A and the Sussexes are made for one another. A nation and a couple whose foundational moment was escaping the clutches of the dastardly British monarchy. A nation and a couple who threw off the rule of an oppressive sovereign to create their own destiny. A nation and a couple who have defined themselves in opposition to a paternalistic institution that sought to bring them to heel.

On paper, we should be seeing a love-in between the Sussexes and Americans so ardent it would make a Woodstock attendee blush.

And yet now, fresh polling has come out revealing that Amer-I-cans have quite the mixed feelings about the royal truants.

Harry is currently the 1181st most popular person of all time in the US and Meghan is the

1847th, while new research out from YouGov (and reported by Newsweek) paints an even

grimmer picture.

Harry’s approval rating has nosedived.

There are two numbers that YouGov tracks – favourability and unfavourability. The way this works is that you subtract the latter from the former and you get a net approval rating.

So, in the second quarter of this year, ol’ Harry-spills-his-guts was liked by 48 per cent of respondents, and disliked by 24 per cent, putting him on net 24 per cent.

This represented him gaining back a smidge of ground since his popularity went off a cliff in the wake of the publication of Spare in January.

Prince William, meanwhile, is sitting at 43 per cent favourability and 21 per cent unfavourability, giving him a 22 per cent net score.

Now, let us just pause here on this tour of the American public’s psyche.

Because while Harry might be beating William right now, it is only by a hair’s breadth (hang on, that might be a sensitive issue for those boys …) despite every accusation, claim and deeply unflattering detail that the duke has lobbed at his brother.

Over the course of Harry and Meghan’s Netflix series and his book, the duke put everything on the line, including his family relationships, public approval and his very prosaic fortunes.

(Oddly, outside of the safety of the royal cadre, vast estates don’t magically pay for themselves. Who knew you had to pay to heat a swimming pool, huh?)

Harry, via these outings, bared his soul, risked the wrath of Buckingham Palace and thoroughly traduced the privacy of his supposedly nearest and once dearest to finally get his story and his truth out there. The world would hear what he had to say!

And yet here we are, seven months down the track, and Harry is only just barely scraping past his big brother in the popularity stakes.

Meghan has the worst score of the lot.

Even though Harry cast William as something of a bully who also physically attacked him (RIP that now infamous dog bowl) and leaked to the press to burnish his own image, the Prince of Wales is still only just behind him.

We can now definitively say that Netflix and Spare did not dramatically sway public opinions or turn tides. Basically, wherever most people sat on the Harry Scale™ before the TV and book launches is essentially where they remain afterwards. Hearts and minds were not changed en masse, but only became more entrenched.

For those who think Harry deserves sainthood and to have a new Ben and Jerry’s flavour named after him, such has been his noble suffering at his reptilian family’s hands and his bravery in speaking his truth – those supporters only feel more strongly about him now.

And for those people who see the duke as an adult-sized toddler having an extended tantrum, a man who went full turncoat and made millions betraying his family in the process – then again, these projects, for many, just confirmed that view too.

(I, for the record, do not sit anywhere near either of these extremes).

Nearly two years since Harry’s book deal was announced, and taking his net 24 per cent and William’s net 22 per cent into account, all I can think is: Harry has lost so much, and it is for this?

And thus we get to the other half of the equation here, because this is a quadrille of sorts, also starring Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and Kate, the Princess of Wales.

The duchess, out of all four of them, has the lowest numbers (per the latest available figures directly from YouGov), putting her on 40 per cent popularity with 23 per cent of people disliking her, et vòila, a net figure of plus 17.

Kate has the highest popularity of the former Fab Four. Picture: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Kate, meanwhile, beats them all with figures so good she should think about cashing in and releasing a haircare line. She boasts a net figure of 35 per cent. (46 per cent favourable and 11 per cent unfavourable, though she is only the 1316th most popular person of all time).

Again, it’s fascinating that Kate remains so liked on US soil given the charges and claims made about her by the Sussexes – that she, along with William, encouraged him to dress up as a Nazi; that she was about as warm towards Meghan as a frostbitten Paddle Pop that had been forgotten in the freezer and that she made Meghan cry over a bridesmaid dress contretemps.

In both her and William’s cases, the Sussexes have laid out a series of accusations about them and essentially, the United States has shrugged its shoulders. There has been some movement in the numbers, but nothing like the dramatic pendulum swing that Diana, Princess of Wales enjoyed after her 1995 “three of us in the marriage” Panorama interview.

Days after that eyebrow-singeing outing, polling done by The Mirror found 92 per cent of people supported her coming out about Charles’ extra-curricular activities.

Even two weeks later, the pro-establishment Sunday Times found 70 per cent of their readers thought she should be made a British goodwill ambassador.

But Harry and Meghan have not gotten similar significant or positive support from their serving up of revelations, which puts them in a really difficult position.

Their professional fortunes in the last few weeks have taken a very serious tumble. They parted ways with Spotify in what looked decidedly like a one-sided dumping, while there have been reports in the business press that Netflix will follow suit and permanently delete their numbers once their current contract is up.

William is only slightly less popular than his brother – despite the accusations made against him. Picture: Matt Porteous/Kensington Palace via Getty Images

Whatever happens next, short of the Sussexes’ winning the lottery or Prince Archie proving to be the next great FI driver who can command nine-figure pay cheques, they are going to need to be pulling in commercial deals for the rest of their lives.

However, will deep-pocketed corporate monoliths want to spend millions, if not tens of millions, to secure Harry and Meghan when the US has, right now, a more tangled, a more thorny opinion of them?

I suppose, though, there is another part of the Great American Story – the Second Act.

Tryers who pick themselves up, dust themselves off and have another crack at making it are a mainstay cultural trope. So for now, we wait and see what comes next.

And in the meantime, overcoming adversity? Strength in the face of public opinion? Speaking one’s truth?

This current situation has future Oprah Book Club memoir written all over it.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’

experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as New figures reveal Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘really difficult position’