Vice President Kamala Harris has a slim 2 percentage point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his campaign and handed the baton to her, a Reuters/Ipsos survey shows, BTA reported.
The survey was conducted yesterday and today, after the Republican National Convention ended on Thursday, at which Trump officially accepted his party's nomination, and Biden's decision on Sunday to drop out of the race and support Harris' candidacy.
Harris, whose entourage claims that she has already secured the Democratic nomination, leads Trump with 44% support to 42% for the Republican, the national survey shows. That means her lead is within the 3-percentage-point margin of error.
In a poll conducted on July 15 and 16, Harris and Trump had the same support share at 44%, and in a previous survey conducted on July 1-2, the Republican had a 1-percentage-point lead – and in both cases, the lead for each candidate was again within the margin of error.
While national opinion polls can provide some indication of the mood of American voters, U.S. elections are usually decided by a few strategically important states that can tip the balance of power in the Electoral College in one direction or the other – the body that ultimately determines who will be the new US head of state.
According to the latest survey, 56% of registered voters surveyed agree with the opinion that 59-year-old Harris is "mentally fit and able to handle the challenges"; by comparison, only 49% of respondents said the same about 78-year-old Trump. Only 22% of voters shared this opinion about Biden.
The 81-year-old Biden ended his participation in the election race after a debate with Trump, in which he often stuttered and did not counter with the necessary enthusiasm the Republican's attacks, which contained untruths, according to Reuters.
Asked to share who they would support in a hypothetical duel, in which the ballot, in addition to the names of Trump and Harris, also includes that of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 42% of voters prefer Harris to 38% for Trump, meaning that in such a scenario the difference between the two is already outside the margin of error. Kennedy, who according to the survey has the support of 8% of voters, has not yet met the requirements in many states to be allowed to participate in the elections on November 5 (to be included on the ballot, he must collect a legally specified number of signatures of citizens in support of his candidacy, editor's note).
The Reuters/Ipsos survey was conducted online among 1,241 adults from across the United States, including 1,018 registered voters.