The abrupt narrowing of President Joe Biden’s advantage over former President Donald Trump in one survey suggests that the two candidates would be in a tight battle leading up to the November election.
Following their respective party’s primary victory on Super Tuesday, Biden and Trump look ready to meet again in 2020. National surveys had been predicting Trump’s November victory for weeks, but multiple polls showed Biden leading Trump last week.
The American people are deeply divided about their voting intentions for the general election, as shown on Monday by a survey that had Biden ahead last week but now showed Trump narrowly regaining his edge.
From March 8th to the 10th, 6,300 registered voters were polled by Morning Consult. Of them, 43% want to vote for Biden and 44% for Trump.
This was a decline from last week’s poll when 44% of people indicated they would vote for Biden and 43% said they would support Trump.
Voters are divided on Biden’s presidential candidacy. 65% think he is “too old,” and 30% disagree. Last week, just 26% disagreed with the sentiment that he was too old, while 68% concurred.
A one-point margin of error was included in the survey.
Even more recent polls have put Biden ahead of Trump.
When pitted against Trump in a head-to-head fight, Biden came out on top in a March 5–6 poll by Emerson College, which surveyed 1,350 registered voters. Of those surveyed, 59% favored Biden, and 49% intended to vote for Trump.
The Emerson poll, however, indicated that Biden’s lead fades when other contenders are considered.
With 43% of the vote compared to 42% for Biden, Trump was far ahead in a multi-party survey. At the same time, 6% of the vote went to independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and 2% went to independent Cornel West. A mere 1% of voters intended to back Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate.