After President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic Party’s nomination, questions have turned to her electoral viability — and how she might perform against former President Donald Trump.
Across recent polls, Harris trails Trump by 2 percentage points nationally on average, 46 per cent to 48 per cent.
This is an improvement over Biden’s standing in the race: He trailed the Trump by 3 percentage points in the polling average, 47 per cent to 44 per cent.
In recent swing state polls, taken before Biden announced he would withdraw from the presidential race and completed before the assassination attempt on Trump, Harris was only down by 1 percentage point in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania in a hypothetical matchup with Trump. And she was winning by a more comfortable 5 percentage points in Virginia, a state where Biden was up by only a razor-thin margin.
In both states, Harris performed slightly stronger than Biden with Black voters, younger voters and women — all groups that Democrats need in order to be successful this fall. And, importantly, those are groups where Biden appeared to be losing ground.
As recently as April, Harris was polling substantially behind Biden’s standing, but she has gained ground in recent surveys.
At the same time, increasing shares of Democrats had said that they wanted Biden to step aside. In an AP-NORC poll conducted July 11-15, nearly two-thirds of Democrats said they wanted the president to withdraw and allow the party to select a different candidate. On Sunday, they got their wish.
Published 22 July 2024, 01:48 IST