Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead over President Donald Trump dropped two points in a national poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports immediately following the former vice presidents’s announcement of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate.
The Rasmussen Reports poll released on Wednesday shows Biden with a four point lead in the national popular vote, 48 percent to 44 percent. The poll of 2,500 likely voters was conducted between August 12 and August 18, with no polling conducted on August 14 or August 15, and has a margin of error of two percent.
The results represent a two point drop in support for Biden when compared to the six point lead he had over Trump in a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted the prior week in August, 49 percent to 43 percent.
Biden named Harris as his running mate on Tuesday, August 11.
Significantly, the Rasmussen Reports poll also concluded, “The new survey finds Biden with 81% of the Democratic vote. Trump has the support of 77% of Republicans, but, for the first time, he leads among voters not affiliated with either major political party.”
The Rasmussen Reports poll released on Wednesday is not the only poll that has shown support for Joe Biden drop after he picked Sen. Harris as his running mate.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this week:
Joe Biden’s lead over Donald Trump in the national popular vote in the 2020 presidential election has virtually evaporated just days after the former vice president named Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate because of a significant decline in support from black and Hispanic voters, according to a poll released by CNN on Sunday evening.
Ten percent of black and Hispanic voters have changed their support from Biden to Trump in just two months.
This decline in support for Biden and increase in support for Trump among black and Hispanic voters has caused Biden’s lead among registered voters to drop from 14 points — 55 percent to 41 percent — in the same nationwide poll conducted for CNN by SSRS in June, to four percent — 50 percent to 46 percent — in the nationwide poll of 987 registered voters conducted for CNN by SSRS between August 12 and August 15. The poll has a margin of error of four percent, which means the race for president is now a statistical tie.
In contrast to the Rasmussen Reports and CNN/SSRS polls, another poll released on Wednesday found that support for Biden increased after he named Harris to the ticket.
The Hill/HarrisX poll released on Wednesday shows that Biden’s lead over Trump increased from four points in the week prior to Biden’s announcement of his pick of Harris as his running mate to six points in the week after his selection of the senator from California as his running mate. Some of the poll’s responses were obtained on August 11, the day Biden named Harris as his pick:
Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 6 percentage points in a new Hill-HarrisX national survey.
Forty-five percent of respondents said they’d vote for Biden on Election Day, while 39 percent said they’d go with Trump.
The results of the Aug. 11-14 survey mark a gain for Biden, who was up 44 percent to 40 percent over Trump in the previous poll, conducted Aug. 8-11.
“The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 2,823 registered voters . . . [and] has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.84 percentage points.”
An Economist/YouGov poll released on Wednesday found that Biden’s lead over Trump was unchanged at ten percent in the week after the announcement of Harris compared to the week before that announcement.
The Real Clear Politics Average of Polls, which includes the Rasmussen Reports, CNN/SSRS, Hill/HarrisX, and Economist/YouGov polls, in additional to several others, shows that Biden’s lead over Trump has remained slightly above seven points from August 11, the day he selected Harris as his running mate, and Wednesday August 19.
On August 11, Biden’s lead over Trump in the Real Clear Politics Average of polls was 7.2 percent. On August 19, Biden’s lead is 7.6 percent.
On August 19, 2016, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump in the Real Clear Politics Average of Polls was 5.5 percent, or 2.1 percent less than Biden’s current lead over the president.