Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have seen a surge in popularity in the US as the couple’s approval rate has reached its highest point in 2023.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s approval rating plummeted after the release of their self-titled Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan.
The documentary was a streaming success and broke multiple records on the platform but led to a large decrease in the couple’s popularity.
On December 5 2022, before the release of the documentary Harry had an approval rating of 38 while Meghan Markle’s was 23.
However, in January 2023, the Duke of Sussex’s approval rating stood at -7 and his wife’s had fallen to -13.
Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare was also released that month and may have compounded the negative impact of the Netflix series.
A year on from the release of Harry & Meghan, the couple’s approval ratings are back in positive territory.
The Duke of Sussex has an approval rating of 29 and the Duchess of Sussex has a score of 15.
Prince Harry has seen a 17-point swing from September 2023 when he had an approval rating of 12.
Meghan Markle had a negative approval rating as few as three months ago with the former Suits star scoring -2 but she has also seen a 17-point jump in December.
The polls were conducted by Redfield & Wilton for Newsweek.
The polling asked a representative sample of 1,500 Americans what they thought of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The boost in popularity may be a product of American audiences having a break from the couple after a surge of content released very closely together in Harry & Meghan and Spare.
The polling also indicates that Omid Scobie’s royal book Endgame has not damaged the Sussexes’ popularity with American audiences.
Scobie, an author with links to the couple, released his bombshell book worldwide on November 28 2023.
Sources close to Meghan and Harry stressed that no one in the Sussex camp leaked the names to Scobie and that they never wanted them to be named publicly.
