Former President Trump is leading Vice President Harris in a hypothetical head-to-head, new polling shows, as talk swirls of potentially replacing President Biden on the Democratic ticket.
The latest Emerson College Polling survey found Trump with 49 percent and Harris with 43 percent among registered voters in a potential match-up, a 6-point lead for the former president. Another 8 percent were undecided.
Harris notched the same share of support as Biden, who also scored 43 percent against Trump — but Biden trailed the presumptive Republican nominee by 3 points, with 43 percent to Trump’s 46 percent, and 11 percent undecided.
Biden faces calls from within his own party to withdraw from the 2024 race and be replaced on the Democratic ticket after a dismal performance at the first presidential debate last month.
Postdebate polls have largely been bad news for the incumbent, and could even be opening the door for Trump to take blue states like Virginia and Minnesota in the fall.
Trump was also up in hypothetical head-to-heads against eight other prominent Democratic and independent names floated as potential Biden replacements. He led by 6 points over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 7 points over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 8 points over California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Al Gore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer all came in behind Trump in additional tests.
But a new poll from the Democratic pollster Bendixen & Amandi Inc. found more promising results for Harris — putting the vice president ahead of Trump by 1 point. Harris scored 42 percent to Trump’s 41 percent, while 5 percent of voters picked a third-party candidate and 12 percent were undecided.
A recent CNN poll also found her running closer than Biden to Trump, just 2 points behind the former president — while Biden was 6 points behind.
Biden has been beating back calls to step away from the ticket as the Democrats’ August national convention nears.
“The Democratic Party has spoken. The Democratic nominee is me. And I’m going to be the nominee of the party,” Biden told donors in a recent call. “We can’t waste any more time being distracted.”
The Emerson College Polling national survey was conducted July 7-8 among 1,370 registered voters and has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error, of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.