Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for President as the presumptive Democratic candidate during an event in Wisconsin Photo Credit: AP
US Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two percentage point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
That compares with the marginal two-point deficit Mr. Biden faced against Mr. Trump in last week’s polls before dropping out of the race Sunday.
The new polls, conducted Monday and Tuesday, followed the Republican National Convention where Mr. Trump on Thursday officially accepted the nomination and Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris.
Harris, whose campaign said she had secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within a 3 percentage point margin of error.
Mrs. Harris and Mr. Trump were tied at 44% in the July 15-16 poll, and Mr. Trump led by one percentage point in the July 1-2 poll, both within the margin of error.
While national surveys provide important signals of American support for political candidates, several competitive states usually tilt the balance in the US Electoral College, which ultimately decides who wins the presidential election.
A pollster with Mr. Trump’s campaign rolls down any poll showing an increase in Ms. support. Harris’, arguing that it is likely to see a temporary rise in popularity due to widespread media coverage of her new candidacy.
“The bump is probably going to show up in the next few days and it’s going to last,” pollster Tony Fabrizio said in a memo distributed to reporters by the Trump campaign.
Candidates often expect a bump after officially accepting their party’s nomination at a stage-managed televised convention, such as the one Mr. Trump did last week. But polls show no such signs.
Bump or not, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll underscores the reasons for Mr. Biden’s exit from the race and for Ms. Harris replaced him on the ticket.
Harris seems more clear than Biden, Trump
About 56% of registered voters agreed with the statement that Harris, 59, is “mentally sharp and able to overcome challenges,” compared to 49% who said of Trump, 78.
Only 22% of voters rated Biden that way.
Biden, 81, ended his re-election bid after a debate with Trump in which he often stuttered and failed to aggressively challenge Trump’s attacks that included falsehoods.
About 80% of Democratic voters said they viewed Biden favorably, compared to 91% who said so of Harris. Three-quarters of Democratic voters said they agreed with his statement that the party and voters should back Harris now, with only a quarter saying that multiple candidates should compete for the party’s nomination.
When voters in the survey were shown a hypothetical ballot that included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris led Trump 42% to 38%, an advantage outside the margin of error. Kennedy, who was favored by 8% of voters in the polls, had not qualified for election in many states before the November 5 election.
Harris campaigned in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday. He won the support of the main party figures and attention began to choose who to vote for.
Many respondents to the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they did not know anything about the Democrats being considered as potential choices to join the Harris ticket.
About one in four registered voters said they had never heard of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the former Democratic presidential candidate who had the best rating — 37% — of Harris’ candidate in the poll.
One in three have not heard of California Governor Gavin Newsom, with the same share saying he looks good. Half of registered voters in the poll have never heard of Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and two-thirds know nothing of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
The poll, conducted online, surveyed 1,241 US adults nationwide, including 1,018 registered voters.
