Two new polls after presidential election Joe Biden‘s disastrous debate with Donald Trump discouraging news for Democrats.
A Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll released Tuesday found Trump beating Biden by 3 percentage points in a six-way presidential election, a reversal of a poll conducted a month earlier that had the two candidates tied.
Another poll conducted by SSRS for CNN found Trump with a 6 percentage point lead over the president, unchanged from an earlier poll. But there’s also this: 56 percent of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said their party would be more likely to win with a candidate other than Biden.
The new polls come as questions mount about Biden’s ability to take on Trump, with Democrats increasingly calling for him to step aside after a debate in which he at times appeared to struggle to respond to his opponent’s verbal attacks.
Just over three-quarters of voters in the CNN poll think Trump did a better job during the presidential debate, compared to 23 percent for Biden.
Voters in the USA TODAY poll also saw Trump as the clear winner of the debate, with 50 percent saying the former president won, compared to 11 percent for Biden. Twenty-eight percent said neither candidate won.
Still, 44 percent of those who watched the presidential debate say it had no impact on their decision about who to vote for, according to the USA TODAY poll. About a third say it made them more likely to vote for Trump, while 10 percent say it made them more likely to vote for Biden.
An overwhelming share of voters — 75 percent — say Democrats have a better chance of winning the presidency in 2024 with someone other than Biden as the party’s nominee, a CNN poll finds.
Amid speculation about who could replace Biden if he decides to step aside, CNN’s poll tested how well a range of Democratic Party alternatives would fare against Trump. Only Vice President Kamala Harris outperformed Biden at 45 percent, while California Governor Gavin Newsom and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg matched Biden at 43 percent.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has rejected POLITICO’s reporting that her state was “no longer winnable” for Biden, did worse against Trump than against Biden at 42 percent.
The CNN poll was conducted June 28-30, polling 1,045 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. The USA TODAY poll was conducted June 28-30, polling 1,000 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
