A vast majority of voters are now familiar with the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden made by a former Senate staffer named Tara Reade, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.
Biden, who is expected to be the Democratic presidential nominee, has denied the allegations, which Reid claims occurred during a 1993 incident.
The May 6 survey found that 77 percent of registered voters have heard of the allegations while 23 percent have not.
Among those who have heard of the allegations, 61 percent say they are following the news closely, while 39 percent said they are not following it closely.
The survey found men who have heard of the allegations were 19 percentage points more likely to say they are following the story closely than women who said they are familiar with the allegations.
“I think the male-female differences are quite interesting,” Karlyn Bowman, public opinion analyst and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Hill.TV.
“Women are more Democratic, more disposed toward Biden, and I think that’s what we’re seeing in a lot of these questions overall,” she added.
Among partisans who have heard of the allegations, Democrats were the least likely to be following the news closely, though almost 6 in 10 say they are.
Fifty-nine percent of Democratic voters said they are paying attention to the Reade allegations while 66 percent of Republican voters and 63 percent of independent voters said the same.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among between 732-957 registered voters on May 6. It has a margin of error of plus or minus between 3.17-4.6 percentage points.
—Gabriela Schulte
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