The looming November rematch between President Biden and former President Trump has tightened, according to a survey shared with The Hill from Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll.
The latest survey found Trump up just 2 points over Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head, with roughly 9 percent of voters undecided. Though the Republican still has the edge, that’s down from a 6-point lead recorded in February.
Forcing undecided voters into a choice, Trump’s lead remained 2 points, 51 percent to Biden’s 49 percent — also down from a 6-point split last month.
“Trump continued to lead Biden after the state of the union though it’s a tighter race,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the poll. “There’s 20 per cent of independents saying they are undecided so they are the likely swing voters who will determine who wins.”
Trump’s lead over Biden also tightened in a three-way race with Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on a hypothetical ballot. While Trump was up 7 points in last month’s survey, the latest poll shows him beating Biden by just 3 points, while Kennedy snagged 15 percent support and an additional 7 percent remained undecided.
The former president enjoys more of a lead when more candidates are added into the mix. With Independent candidate Cornel West and the Green Party’s Jill Stein also on the ticket alongside Kennedy, Trump was up 5 points over Biden — though his lead this month is still smaller this month than the 9-point advantage seen in February.
The signs of a tightening race come after Trump and Biden earlier this month snagged the delegates they need to clinch their respective party nominations, teeing up a rematch in November.
Polling shows many Americans dread the idea of a Biden-Trump showdown, and the race is expected to come down to the wire.
The Harris Poll and Harris X survey was conducted March 20-21 among 2,111 registered voters. It is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll.
Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party, and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.