(Scypre.com) – President Biden announced he would not seek re-election and instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. This decision comes after recent polls, conducted following Biden’s challenging debate performance, indicated minimal difference between his and Harris’s standing against former President Donald Trump.
According to an analysis by The New York Times, Harris trails Trump by approximately two percentage points in recent polls, showing a 46% to 48% split. This is a slight improvement over Biden, who was trailing by three percentage points on average, with a 47% to 44% difference. These figures suggest that Harris might have a marginally better chance against Trump compared to Biden.
A specific poll by The New York Times and Siena College conducted in Pennsylvania from July 9-11, prior to Biden’s withdrawal and the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, revealed that Harris was only one percentage point behind Trump in a hypothetical matchup. This close margin indicates her competitive stance in this crucial battleground state.
In Virginia, Harris held a five-point lead over Trump, whereas Biden only managed a narrow advantage. The Times reported that Harris fared slightly better than Biden among Black voters, younger voters, and women in both states, indicating her potential to galvanize key demographics more effectively than Biden.
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted from July 5-9 showed that 70% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would be “satisfied” if Biden withdrew and Harris became the Democratic candidate for the 2024 election. In an open-ended question within the same poll, 29% of respondents preferred Harris as the nominee if Biden stepped aside. Other notable mentions included California Governor Gavin Newsom with 7%, former First Lady Michelle Obama with 4%, and both Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer with 3%. However, half of the Democrats did not specify an alternative candidate.
As pressure from Democratic lawmakers and donors for Biden to step aside intensified, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last week revealed that about six in 10 Democrats believed Harris would perform well as president. Conversely, about two in 10 disagreed, and another two in 10 were uncertain or lacked sufficient information to form an opinion.
A CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released on July 2 highlighted that three-quarters of voters thought the Democratic Party would have a better chance of retaining the White House with someone other than Biden at the top of the ticket. In a hypothetical match-up, this poll showed 47% of registered voters supporting Trump, compared to 45% for Harris, a difference within the survey’s margin of error.
These polling results and the subsequent decision by Biden to endorse Harris have set the stage for a dynamic and potentially groundbreaking election cycle, as Harris steps into the spotlight as the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2024.