Biden vs. Trump remains close, so next week's debate offers them an opportunity
The presidential election remains essentially tied as President Biden and former President Donald Trump prepare for their first televised debate next week.
According to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, out Tuesday, Biden and Trump both received 49% support among registered voters nationally. That includes undecided voters who are leaning toward one candidate. The survey had a margin of error of nearly 4 percentage points.
That’s relatively unchanged since last month’s poll.
Lee Miringoff — director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the survey — said most voters have decided who they will vote for in the presidential election.
However, 9% of voters polled said they haven’t yet made up their mind who they’ll vote for. And another 25% said they have a “good idea” who they would vote for, but “could still change [their] mind.”
“I think that this to some degree taps into the notion that there are still a lot of months to go,” Miringoff said.
The first of two planned presidential debates is on June 27, and 6 in 10 survey respondents said they plan to watch it. Because the debates and party conventions have yet to happen, Miringoff said voters are more likely to tell pollsters that they are open to seeing “how things play out.”
“That’s even if they do end up right back where they were,” he said, “because they interpret these events in ways that reinforce what they already think.”
In particular, the poll found younger voters and nonwhite voters were more likely than other groups to say their vote could change. Among both groups, just about 55% said they know for sure who they’re voting for.
The poll also found that Biden is making some inroads among independent voters. Biden’s support among these voters went from 42% in last month's survey to 50%.
“This may be the group that is most influenced by the results of Donald Trump's legal problems,” Miringoff said. “But independents are very much more persuadable in the whole sea of things that are going to affect this outcome of the election.”
David North, an independent voter in Connecticut who participated in the survey, said he supported Republican candidates until eight years ago, but is also most likely going to vote for Biden in November.
“I think we have to go with Biden just because he's a regular, old time, slick politician that knows how to get things done,” he said. “They just might not like what he gets done. But at least he's playing the game kind of by our traditional rules.”
The poll found that while Biden is gaining an edge among independent voters, Trump is doing better among voters who disapprove of both candidates.
Miringoff also said some of the more unusual electorate patterns in this race “are now starting to normalize” a little bit.
For example, Biden had previously been overperforming expectations among white voters. But since last month's survey, Trump’s percentage point advantage among white voters doubled from a 6-point to a 12-point lead.
Conversely, Biden is starting to improve his support among nonwhite voters. According to this latest poll, Biden (58%) leads Trump (40%) by 18 percentage points. The president previously had an 11-percentage point advantage among this group of voters.
In a broader contest, with independent and third-party candidates, Trump leads Biden, 42%-41%, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s not yet qualified for CNN’s debate next week, coming in third, at 11% support.
"What's been interesting and continues to be interesting is that Robert Kennedy, who gets the most votes of a minor-party candidate, is drawing from both of them [Biden and Trump] roughly equally,” Miringoff said.
What about Trump’s conviction?
A slim majority of poll respondents — 51% — said Trump definitely or probably should serve prison time after his historic recent hush money conviction in New York. Forty-seven percent said Trump should definitely or probably not be incarcerated.
What voters say about the issues that matter to them
Out of a set list of six issues, a plurality of respondents (30%) said inflation is top of mind when they think about voting in the general election. That was followed by preserving democracy (29%) and immigration (18%).
Comparing Trump and Biden, most respondents said Trump would be better at handling the economy and immigration, while they said the same of Biden on preserving democracy and abortion.
The survey of 1,311 adults was conducted June 10 to 12 by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/- 3.6 percentage points.
Transcript
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Biden and former President Trump have their first debate next week, and the race is essentially tied. That's according to the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll that's out today. Though most voters have decided who they will vote for, some say they could still change their minds. Let's talk more about this with NPR's Ashley Lopez. Good morning, Ashley.
ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: So tell us more about that head-to-head number with Biden and Trump.
LOPEZ: Well, I mean, this race is still pretty much a toss-up. Both Biden and Trump got 49% support from registered voters who were surveyed from across the country in this poll. Mind you, there is a margin of error here that's a couple of percentage points, and when the survey was last conducted, in May, Biden had a slight edge, something like 2 percentage points. But that was also within that margin of error, which means this race essentially remains a tie.
FADEL: OK, so the top-line numbers aren't changing a lot...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
FADEL: ...From month to month, but is there anything changing among particular voting groups that stands out?
LOPEZ: I mean, something that I think that's notable is that in a way, this election is, like, getting less interesting. And by that, I mean some of these unusual electoral patterns that we've been seeing in the polls up until now are sort of reverting back to their traditional corners, right? A good example of this is Biden overperforming among white voters, which is pretty unique for Democratic candidates as of late. In last month's poll, Trump had a 6-percentage-point lead among those voters. As of this month, Trump's lead has doubled to a 12-point lead. And for Biden, you know, he's starting to do a little better with nonwhite voters. This is a key part of that coalition that got him elected in 2020 that he has been doing pretty poorly with lately, particularly on issues related to Gaza and the ongoing war in the Middle East. Last month, Biden had an 11-point advantage among nonwhite voters, and now that lead is about 18 points.
FADEL: So as I mentioned, next week is the first televised debate between Biden and Trump for this year's election. Is there a chance some voters could be swayed one way or the other by what they hear in this debate?
LOPEZ: You know, so most voters have decided who they're going to vote for and aren't going to budge on that, but about 9% of the people who participated in the poll said they haven't made up their mind about who they'll vote for yet. And probably more notable is that about 25% of those surveyed said they have a good idea who they're going to vote for, but they could still change their mind. Lee Miringoff, who directs the Marist poll, told me that he thinks this isn't that surprising, though, considering that there are, like, still so many months to go before the election.
LEE MIRINGOFF: There are, in the context of a political debate or two, the political conventions still to happen, so some voters are more likely to tell us, well, they're going to see how things play out.
LOPEZ: And in particular, the poll found that younger voters and those nonwhite voters we were talking about were more likely than other groups to say their vote could change.
FADEL: OK, so those could be crucial voting blocs. This is also the first poll Marist has conducted since Trump's criminal conviction. Did that have any impact on the results?
LOPEZ: You know, it really didn't have that much of an impact - according to the polling, at least. Lee Miringoff with Marist told me that Trump's legal troubles in general have made both sides, like, dig in a little more to the views they already had. If anything, Trump's criminal conviction might have influenced some independent voters, maybe. President Biden's support went from 42% last month with independents to now 50%, but, you know, independent voters can be influenced by a lot of issues, and who knows how much this will matter to them in November.
FADEL: NPR's Ashley Lopez. Thank you, Ashley.
LOPEZ: Yeah, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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