Republican Donald Trump is narrowly leading Democrat Joe Biden, 41% to 38%, in the aftermath of last week’s heated debate between the candidates, according to an exclusive USA Today/Suffolk University poll.
The slight difference comes after the last poll, conducted in May, saw the two candidates tied at 37% to 37%.
The results still suggest a close race but don’t show a definitive lead. The margin of support and its shift since the spring are within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The new survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted Friday through Sunday by landline and cell phone.
Support for third-party candidates remained little changed, with Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. receiving 8 percent and the other three receiving about 1 percent each.
But other findings from the poll were a red flag for Biden, whose campaign is in disarray following a lackluster performance in last Thursday’s CNN debate. The survey found that 41% of Democrats said they wanted to replace Biden from the top spot on the shortlist.
Prepare to vote: See who’s running for president and compare their positions on key issues with our voter guide
“I think people are focusing more on age than the realities of our daily lives under two different administrations,” said Sharia Murray, 57, a Democrat from Round Rock, Texas, who works in law enforcement and also participated in the poll. She is an ardent Biden supporter but worries about voter apathy and focus on “very superficial issues.”
“I don’t think many people believe that our rights and freedoms could be rolled back under a Trump administration,” she said.
Trump is currently leading among voters’ second choice polls, with 25% of those surveyed saying he was their second choice, compared with 17% for Biden. Thirty-three percent named one of four third-party candidates as their second choice: Independent Cornel West, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver and RFK Jr.
“It’s still within the margin of error at this point, but the Biden campaign must be concerned about second-choice votes drifting to third-party voters,” said David Paleologos, president of the Suffolk Center for Political Research. Some Democratic strategists had predicted those voters would swing back to Biden as Election Day approached.
“They’re now supporting Trump, not Biden,” he said. “The Stein, West and RFK supporters he might have had in November have fallen out of favor with him after Thursday’s debate.”
Differences in enthusiasm could affect voter turnout
Trump supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Biden supporters are, and that disparity in enthusiasm could be a deciding factor in persuading them to actually vote in the fall.
“I like Trump,” said Zach Anderson, 30, a maintenance engineer and Republican from South Chicago, Illinois. “The country was running well four or five years ago when he was president. Now that he has four years of experience, I can only assume he’ll do a better job than he did last time.”
In contrast, Steve Sutton, an independent from Seattle who works in technology, said he supports Biden simply because he opposes Trump.
“Biden seems too old and Trump can’t tell the truth,” he said during the debate. “Those were the two points that emerged from the debate, and they’re both absolutely true.”
- By a two-to-one ratio, Trump supporters were more likely to say they were “very excited” to vote for their preferred candidate, 59% to 30%.
- Biden supporters were more likely than not to say they were “not very excited” or “not at all excited” about their candidate by a 2-to-1 margin (37% to 16%).
After years of increasing political polarization, most partisans say their minds are set, including 87% of Biden supporters and 89% of Trump supporters. Only 10% of Biden supporters and 12% of Trump supporters say they might change their minds.
But majorities of those who support a third-party candidate say they might change their mind, ranging from 56% of Kennedy supporters to 80% of Stein supporters.
Overall, 17% of those surveyed said they might change their mind.
detail:Joe Biden’s Democratic support takes big hit after debate, exclusive poll finds
For many, that would require a change of candidate: In response to an open-ended question, 21% said “a different candidate” and 16% said “a better candidate” would make them reconsider their choice.
Some respondents were skeptical about the persuasive power of the Republican National Convention in July and the Democratic National Convention in August: 14% said those conventions might change their minds, and 12% said the Democratic Convention might change their minds.
But only 2% said the Republican convention might change their mind.
When it comes to congressional elections, 47% of people said they would vote for an unknown Republican candidate in their district, compared with 45% who said they would vote for the Democratic candidate — a narrow margin but one that could be encouraging for Republicans’ hopes of maintaining their slim House majority.
Trump supporters are suspicious of Earl
Trump has made unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen, raising deep doubts among his supporters about whether this year’s vote tally can be trusted.
The poll found that 44% of Trump supporters said they were “not confident” that the 2024 election results will be counted and reported accurately, while an additional 45% said they were “somewhat confident.”
In contrast, 83% of Biden supporters said they were “very confident” the count would be fair.
Biden supporters, however, were less sure that he would win: 73% predicted a Biden victory and 12% predicted a Trump win, while Trump supporters were more bullish about November, with 88% predicting a Trump win and just 4% predicting a Biden victory.
