Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden by two points nationally in a hypothetical head-to-head race and is dominating his opponents in the Republican primary field, according to a national USA Today-Suffolk University poll published Monday.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters finds Trump with 39 percent of backing while 37 percent support Biden. His two-point lead falls just within the plus or minus 3.1 percent margin of error. Under this scenario, 17 percent of voters say they would vote for a third-party candidate.
Among independents, Trump leads 35 percent to 24 percent, while 28 percent would back someone else and 12 percent are undecided.
Biden only pulls 63 percent support among black voters, while Trump draws 12 percent. In 2020, Trump carried exactly 12 percent of the black vote to Biden’s 87 percent, marking a substantial decline for the president in just over three years’ time, per USA Today.
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Trump has the advantage among Latino voters at 39 percent to Biden’s 34 percent, as well as voters in most age demographics, including those between under 34 years of age at 37 percent to 33 percent. Biden only leads among voters 65 and older, at 42 percent to 38 percent.
Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told USA Today:
Although Trump hasn’t grown support among Black voters, he has closed the deficit because third-party voters come off of Biden’s support among Blacks. A young voter or a person of color voting ‘third party’ is a vote away from President Biden, and a vote away from President Biden is a vote for Donald Trump.
When the field is expanded to seven candidates, Trump’s lead over Biden grows to three percent, as he takes the lion’s share of support at 37 percent, followed by Biden at 34 percent.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earned the most of any third-party candidate with ten percent of the response, followed by independent candidate Cornel West, Libertarian candidate Lars Mapstead, and a generic No Labels candidate at two percent. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is in last place with one percent, and eleven percent are undecided.
The poll also finds that Trump is trouncing his opponents in the Republican primary, reaching 62 percent of support. He enjoys a 49-point advantage over his nearest competitor, former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), with 13 percent of backing. From there, former Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) lands at ten percent, followed by entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at six percent and former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) at four percent. Five percent have not yet made up their minds.
The poll was conducted from December 26-29, and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percent for the full sample. The GOP primary portion of the poll featured responses from 325 likely GOP primary voters.