Former President Donald Trump’s early polling lead over President Joe Biden has slipped over the past two months as he’s been on trial in two separate cases in Manhattan, with a string of recent polls showing Biden beating Trump in November. A Monday Marist poll was the latest to show Biden beating Trump 51% to 48% in a two-way race—a one-point swing in the head-to-head matchup since the last Marist/NPR/PBS NewsHour poll in early April—and widening his lead to five points when the three third-party candidates are in the mix—a three-point swing in Biden’s favor.
The poll follows a NBC survey released Sunday that found Biden trailing Trump by two points in a head-to-head race, but beating him by two when independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, plus Green Party candidate Jill Stein, are on the ballot. Morning Consult’s latest weekly poll, taken April 19-21, also shows Biden with a one-point lead over Trump, after its previous poll found Trump leading by two points. Trump’s polling lead over Biden has decreased by more than four percentage points, to 0.2, since the end of January, according to RealClearPolitics, while the Economist poll tracker shows Trump and Biden have been tied since April 5th for the first time since September.
Of 13 polls released this month and included in RealClearPolitics’ polling average, Biden either beats or ties with Trump in six surveys, continuing a trend that began in March, when Biden tied or beat Trump in 13 of 24 polls. Biden has seen a boost in polls as he has ramped up his campaign schedule and fundraising in recent months, while Trump has been preoccupied with his court cases and has held far fewer public events than Biden. In a race this close, Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy has the potential to sway the election—though it’s unclear in whose favor. Earlier surveys suggested Kennedy Jr., a scion of the country’s most famous Democratic family, could draw more votes from Biden, but more recently polling suggests he’d hurt Trump.
Polls have suggested Biden—and the Democratic party as a whole—have been losing support among key demographics, including Black, Latino and younger voters. A Harvard Youth poll released last week found Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among people ages 18 to 29, compared to a 23-point margin at this point in the lead-up to the 2020 election. An April Axios/Ipsos poll shows Biden has only a nine-point advantage with Latino voters, compared to 29 points after his first year in office. And a recent Wall Street Journal survey found more Black voters said they were leaning toward Trump than they did in 2020, including 30% of Black men and 11% of Black women.
Biden and Trump are poised for a historic rematch after clinching their respective parties’ nominations. Polls show historically low voter enthusiasm as both candidates have relatively low favorability ratings below 45%. Trump has centered his campaign around his legal woes, accusing prosecutors and judges in the cases of working at Biden’s behest to hurt his chances of winning the election, though there’s no evidence suggesting the notion is true. Biden, meanwhile, has cast Trump as a threat to democracy, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riots, and has hammered Trump over his appointment of Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Immigration has also taken center stage in the election as border crossings have reached an all-time high under Biden and Congress has failed to reach an agreement on new border controls.
