With the US presidential election drawing ever closer, Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two percentage point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos Survey found.
The poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention, where Trump formally accepted his party's nomination on Thursday, and Biden's announcement Sunday that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris.
Harris, whose campaign says it has clinched the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3 percentage point margin of error.
Harris and Trump were tied at 44% in a July 15-16 poll, and Trump led by one percentage point in a July 1-2 poll, both within the same margin of error.
While national polls provide important signals of American support for political candidates, only a handful of competitive states typically tip the balance in the U.S. Electoral College, which ultimately decides who wins a presidential election.
The latest poll results underscored the reasons why Biden dropped out of the race and Harris replaced him.
About 56% of registered voters agreed with the statement that Harris, 59, was “mentally sharp and able to meet challenges,” compared with 49% who said the same of Trump, 78.
Only 22% of voters rated Biden that way.
Biden, 81, ended his reelection effort after a debate with Trump in which he often stuttered and did not aggressively challenge Trump's attacks that included falsehoods.
About 80% of Democratic voters said they viewed Biden favorably, compared with 91% who said the same of Harris. Three-quarters of Democratic voters said they agreed with a statement that the party and voters should support Harris now, and just a quarter said multiple candidates should compete for the party’s nomination.
When voters in the poll were shown a hypothetical ballot that included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris led Trump 42 percent to 38 percent — a lead that is outside the margin of error. Kennedy, who is favored by 8 percent of voters in the poll, has yet to qualify for the Nov. 5 election in many states.
On Tuesday, Harris campaigned in Wisconsin, a key state for the presidential nomination. She won the support of the most important figures in the party and since then attention has focused on who she will choose as her running mate.
Many of those polled by Reuters/Ipsos said they knew nothing about the Democrats considered potential candidates to join Harris's ticket.
About one in four registered voters said they had never heard of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a former Democratic presidential candidate who had the highest favorability rating (37%) of Harris' potential running mates in the poll.
One in three had not heard of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and about the same share said they viewed him favorably. Half of registered voters in the survey had never heard of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, and two-thirds knew nothing of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,241 American adults nationwide, including 1,018 registered voters.
