Poll: Majority of voters believe Tara Reade but say it will not impact their vote

A majority of voters say they believe Tara Reade’s allegation of sexual assault against former Vice President Joe Biden but most say that it will not impact how they vote in the November election.

The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll finds that 55 percent of voters surveyed say they believe Reade, against 45 percent who say they do not believe she is telling the truth. Seventy-eight percent of Republicans surveyed believe Reade, while 66 percent Democrats do not believe her. Fifty-six percent of independents believe Reade’s allegation.

About two-thirds of Democrats say the allegation will not impact how they vote on Election Day. Fifty-six percent of independents said the allegation will not impact how they vote.

Biden leads President Trump in the poll 53 percent to 47 percent, with 88 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of independents saying they’ll vote for Biden over Trump.

Reade’s allegation has reached voters, with 81 percent overall saying they’d heard about the claims and 56 percent saying they’ve followed the story closely.

“The Tara Reade story has definitely broken through but most say it does not affect their vote for or against Biden,” said Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll director Mark Penn.

Reade says that Biden sexually assaulted her in an empty corridor on Capitol Hill when she worked in his Senate office in 1993.

Biden denies the claims and top Democratic women have rallied to his defense to say that the do not believe Reade’s allegations.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey was conducted online within the U.S. among a representative sample of 1,854 registered voters from May 13 to May 14 by The Harris Poll.

Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

Penn is an opinion contributor for The Hill.