Poll: Biden holds slight lead with black voters over Harris, statistically tied with white voters

Former Vice President Joe Biden has a slim lead against Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) with black Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters and is statistically tied with white voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday. 

While 31 percent of black Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents support Biden, 27 percent support Harris in the 2020 presidential primary. Biden holds a 21 percent to 20 percent lead over Harris among white voters. Both margins fall within the poll’s margin of error.

{mosads}But both white and black voters believe by double digit margins that Biden has a better chance of defeating President Trump in the general election than Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent.

The former vice president until recently coasted among African American voters, leading both Harris and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), the second of three black Democrats in the primary race, by healthy margins.

But he stumbled in recent days over comments praising his ability to work with segregationist senators during his time in Congress and his defense of his past stance on school busing. 

Harris slammed Biden at Thursday night’s primary debate over the remarks, saying his remarks about the segregationist senators were “hurtful.”

“On this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats, we have to take it seriously, we have to act swiftly,” she added before discussing busing. 

Harris’s overall support soared in the Quinnipiac poll to 20 percent from 7 percent last month, while Biden fell from 30 percent to 22 percent, suggesting the attacks made an impression among voters. 

Biden has sought to appeal to white working-class voters in the Rust Belt with his strong support for organized labor and is hoping to use his association with former President Obama to boost his support among black voters.

Harris expressed confidence after the debate that she would be able to gain black voters’ support as she continued to campaign across the country. 

“I’m still meeting a lot of people. Vice President Biden has obviously, I think, run for president three times, he was vice president for two terms under a very popular president, President Obama. So he’s well known, and I am still in the process of introducing my work and my plan to voters across the country, and I intend to work very hard to earn the vote and the support of everyone,” she said on CNN. 

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 554 Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters from June 28-July 1 and has a margin of error of 5 percentage points.