(The Center Square) – Former President Donald Trump holds a lead over President Joe Biden in the aftermath of a disastrous debate performance that sent Biden’s campaign into crisis.
The Center Square Voter’s Voice Poll released Friday, just ahead of the Republican National Convention that begins Monday in Milwaukee, shows Trump has a three-point lead over Biden, an improvement for Trump compared to previous months. In The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll conducted in March, Trump held a one-point advantage in a head-to-head matchup.
The poll was conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights from July 8-11 and surveyed nearly 2,300 likely voters, including 1,006 Republicans, 1,117 Democrats, and 172 true (non-leaning) independents. It has a margin of error of 2.1%. The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States.
While Trump has performed well in swing states, national polling has shifted in his favor in a notable way since the presidential debate in late June.
The Center Square poll asked voters: “If the 2024 presidential election were being held today, who would you vote for?”
In response, 46% of surveyed likely voters support Trump, compared to 43% for Biden. Another 12% said they were not sure.
Trump’s bump in polling comes after Biden faltered and fumbled his way through the first presidential debate in late June this year. After that debate, Biden has received public calls from over a dozen elected Democrats to withdraw from the Democratic presidential ticket.
This week, Biden held a NATO news conference where he seemed stronger than his debate performance but mistakenly called Trump his vice president, among other gaffes. That flub immediately became a viral moment that Trump publicly mocked, and it came shortly after Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin,” who is president of Russia.
Biden has remained insistent that he will remain in the race, but at least for now this poll and other recent polling shows a more difficult path forward for him.
“In our polling as well as in other publicly available surveys, we have seen Democrats slip on Biden,” David Byler, chief of Research at Noble Predictive Insights, told The Center Square. “Some Democrats have gone from the Biden camp to unsure. Some Democrats have gone from the Biden camp to a third party candidate. There is general unease among Democrats with respect to Biden’s candidacy.”
The poll also asked Democrats that, if they could wave a magic want and select any candidate to top their ticket, two-thirds preferred someone other than Biden.
Another question in the poll gave likely voters a chance to also select Robert F Kennedy Jr, Cornel West, or Jill Stein alongside Trump and Biden.
Under that question, Trump received 43% support while Biden received 40% among likely voters. RFK Jr. received 7% support while West and Stein each received 1%.
The poll also suggests that a significant portion of Biden’s supporters are what Byler called “soft,” meaning they support Biden but are willing to jump ship when given the opportunity.
“In the vast majority of public polls that test the two-way and the five-way matchup, essentially what you see is either equal falloff or more falloff for Biden into the third party and unsure camp,” Byler said. “That’s been a pattern that we’ve seen in various surveys, prior to this one … and in other publicly available surveys that typically it is Trump who benefits from third party candidates on the ballot rather than Biden.”
Notably, Trump does better with men while Biden does better with women. Trump has 50% support from men while garnering 42% support from women.
Biden, on the other hand, has 41% support from men and 46% support from women.
Trump also has 18% support from Black voters, according to the poll. While Biden does much better, Trump’s support is much higher than Republicans have historically been able to rally among Blacks.
Biden has an edge with Trump among Hispanics, beating him 47-41%.
