Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention where Trump on Thursday formally accepted his party's nomination and the Biden announcement on Sunday he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris.
Harris, whose campaign says she has secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3-percentage-point margin of error.
Harris and Trump were tied at 44% in a July 15-16 poll, and Trump led by one percentage point in a July 1-2 poll, both within the same margin of error.
While nationwide surveys give important signals of American support for political candidates, just a handful of competitive states typically tilt the balance in the U.S. Electoral College, which ultimately decides who wins a presidential election.
Some 80% of Democratic voters said they viewed Biden favorably, compared to 91% who said the same of Harris. Three quarters of Democratic voters said they agreed with a statement that the party and voters should get behind Harris now, with only a quarter saying multiple candidates should compete for the party's nomination.
When voters in the survey were shown a hypothetical ballot that included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris led Trump 42% to 38%, an advantage outside the margin of error. Kennedy, favored by 8% of voters in the poll, has yet to qualify for the ballot in many states ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-leads-trump-44-42-us-presidential-race-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2024-07-23/ 