Former President Trump holds a 3-point lead over President Biden, a new national poll found.
The latest Emerson College poll, released Tuesday, found Trump leading with 46 percent of support among registered voters compared to Biden’s 43 percent. The poll also found that 11 percent of respondents were undecided. When undecided voters were asked which candidate they were leaning toward, they were split evenly, with 50 percent choosing Trump and the other half selecting Biden.
“Since before the first presidential debate, former President Trump’s support remains at 46%, while President Biden’s support has decreased two percentage points,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
“Notable shifts away from Biden occurred among independent voters, who break for Trump 42% to 38%; last month they broke for Biden 43% to 41%,” he added.
When third-party candidates were added to the choices, 44 percent said they supported Trump, 40 percent said Biden and 6 percent chose independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cornel West, who is also mounting an independent campaign, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein each received 1 percent of support.
The poll was conducted after the first presidential debate last month that sparked concerns within the Democratic Party over whether Biden is the best candidate to beat Trump. While some Democrats have called on Biden to step down from the ticket, the president has remained adamant that he will not be withdrawing from the race.
The poll also found that Trump leads Vice President Harris and other potential replacements for Biden in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups. He leads with 49 percent of support compared to Harris’s 43 percent.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) received 42 percent of support in a hypothetical match-up with Trump, while the former president received 48 percent. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) received 40 percent of support to Trump’s 48 percent.
The poll was conducted July 7-8 among 1,370 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.