Almost two-thirds of Americans back Biden dropping out — while Trump-Harris matchup is a nail-biter: poll
A whopping 62% of Americans believe that President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 race at this late stage was still the right thing to do, a new poll shows.
The Quinnipiac University survey also suggests that a matchup between GOP presidential contender Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris would be a nail-biter if it were held today.
Only 27% felt that Biden’s move in exiting the race was wrong, while 12% didn’t say either way, the poll said.
Those who backed Biden’s decision involved a majority of Republicans (67%), Democrats (54%) and independents (64%).
Biden, 81, announced his unprecedented decision to drop out of the presidential race Sunday and promptly endorsed Harris to be the Democratic nominee. She is now the party’s presumptive standard bearer.
The president, who was still recovering from COVID at the time, didn’t specify exactly why he decided to pass the baton but teased that he would open up about it in the future.
His decision came against the backdrop of a growing mutiny from Democrats for him to step aside because of a storm of concerns about his mental acuity in the wake of his disastrous debate performance last month.
But the Quinnipiac poll shows that even with Biden’s exit, the top two 2024 presidential candidates have lackluster favorability ratings with the general public.
Trump scored a 46% favorable to 49% unfavorable rating, while Harris notched a 37% favorable to 51% unfavorable rating. Biden clocked in at 38% favorable to 57% unfavorable rating.
Trump’s VP pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), nabbed a 29% favorable to 37% unfavorable score. Harris has yet to announce her vice presidential pick.
In a six-way matchup with other presidential hopefuls, Trump narrowly came out ahead of Harris with 45% followed by Harris at 41%, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 6%, Green Party hopeful Jill Stein at 2%, Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver at 1% and Cornel West at 1%, according to the poll.
With Trump head to head with Harris, he bested her 49% to 47% nationally, the poll found.
For comparison, in a two-way matchup with Biden, Trump scored 48% support to the president’s 45%.
Polling has measured the battle between Harris and Trump far less than Biden vs. Trump, but initial indications peg Trump as the front-runner.
In a five-way matchup minus Oliver, Trump has clinched a 4.7 percentage-point lead over Harris, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls.
Harris had locked down the number of delegates needed to become the Democrats’ nominee for president by the end of the day Monday.
The newly rebranded Harris for President campaign also hauled in more than $100 million between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening from over 1.1 million unique donors, according to officials on the team.
Now Harris is scrambling to select someone as her running mate and is facing a very crunched timeline to make that decision.
Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison has indicated the party still plans to conduct a virtual roll call to officially crown its nominee by Aug. 7.
That’s just shy of two weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from Aug. 19 to 22. The DNC’s rules committee is slated to meet Wednesday to chart the path forward.
The Quinnipiac University poll sampled 1,257 registered voters from July 19 to 21 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. Biden pulled out July 21.
