That said, politicians tend to be good political weathervanes, with their own high-quality polling, and several of the Democratic House members who have advocated for Biden to leave the race are from competitive swing districts.
Third parties pull younger voters, Biden doing better with those most likely to vote
When third parties are factored in, Trump and Biden are statistically tied, with Trump at 43% and Biden 42%.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled 8%, tied for the lowest support for him since Marist started including him in the survey in April. Professor Cornel West, running as an independent, got 3%, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 2%.
A significant area of concern for Biden is younger voters. Biden drops 13 points with Gen Z/Millennials when third-party candidates are factored in.
In fact, 1 in 5 Gen Z/Millennials choose a third-party candidate when the option is offered, higher than any other age group. But they are the least-likely age group to say they are definitely going to vote.
Biden is actually being buoyed by high-propensity voters. That’s a change from past election cycles when low-turnout elections were thought to favor Republicans.
Trump and Biden are tied, 45% to 45%, with the voters who say they are definitely voting. But Biden is doing better with older votes and white voters with college degrees than he did in 2020. Traditionally, those are two groups that have had among the highest participation rates of any voting blocs.
Biden’s approval rating overall is 43%, but it jumps to 47% with those who say they are definitely voting.
If not Biden, who else?
This question may be at the heart of why even more Democratic officials have not called for Biden to step aside.
At this point, no other Democrat tested does better and all are statistically tied with Trump, too.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the most likely successor if Biden were to decide against continuing his campaign, also gets 50% compared to 49% for Trump. California Gov. Gavin Newsom mirrors Biden at 50% to 48% over Trump. And Trump and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are at 49% to 49%.
So there is no clear Democratic alternative, though, as Democrats who have called for Biden to step aside would argue, those candidates could all make the case more coherently for themselves and the party.
Pollsters also expect that Trump will likely get a bounce from the Republican convention, as is the case traditionally in the days and weeks following a convention. That may set off yet another round of Democratic concerns and calls for Biden to step aside in the month until the Democrats’ convention in Chicago in August.
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The survey of 1,309 adults was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday by phone, text and online and in both English and Spanish. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.