Trump, Biden deadlocked ahead of first debate: Survey

President Biden and former President Trump are deadlocked less than two weeks out from their first one-on-one debate of the 2024 cycle, a survey shows.

A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll puts Biden and Trump at 49 percent each among registered voters nationwide, including undecided voters who are leaning toward one candidate. 

Late last month, Biden was up 2 percentage points over Trump, with 50 percent to his rival’s 48 percent — days before Trump was found guilty in his historic hush money case in New York.

Among those who say they definitely plan to cast a ballot in November, Trump is up 1 point in the newest poll. The margin of error is roughly 4 percentage points. 

The latest numbers come not long after Trump’s conviction and just before Trump and Biden are set to square off June 27 in the first of two planned presidential presidential debates. 

Both candidates easily cleared the delegate thresholds they needed to become their presumptive party nominees, and attention has turned to the upcoming debates and party conventions this summer as the campaigns head toward a highly competitive rematch of their 2020 race. The first debate between Biden and Trump back in 2020 saw the two men clash in a chaotic showing marked by interruptions and personal insults. 

Six in 10 Americans in the new Marist poll said they’ll watch their first 2024 debate next week.

The new poll also found Biden has improved among independents, but underscored concerns about the harm third-party candidates could do to the incumbent’s bid — as independent Robert F. Kennedy scrambles to try to join the major-party candidate on the debate stage.

With third-party candidates added into the mix, Trump scored 42 percent support, up 1 point over Biden’s 41 percent. Kennedy received 11 percent, while Cornel West, the Green Party’s Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver each received 3 percent or less. 

Kennedy pulls similar proportions of support from both Biden and Trump supporters, according to the Marist report, while West, Stein and Oliver pull a combined 7 percent from Biden. 

The poll was conducted June 10-12 among 1,184 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points for that group. For the 963 of those who said they definitely plan to vote in November, the margin of error was plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.