President Donald Trump has gained five points against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the national popular vote in less than a month, and the two are now separated by just two points, according to a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released on Tuesday.
The polling news comes hours before Trump and Biden are set to square off in the first presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday night and just five weeks before election day, November 3.
Forty-seven percent of likely voters back Biden, while 45 percent support Trump, giving Biden just a two point advantage over Trump. Unlike most other major polls, the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll does not release the margin of error associated with its poll results.
The poll of 1,314 registered voters was conducted online between September 22 and September 24.
“The poll shows the race closing to 2 points with likely voters and 4 points with leaners as the president showed improvement in the economy that dipped below double-digit unemployment and hit the theme of curbing unrest on which he gained,” Mark Penn, director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll told the Hill.
Tuesday’s poll provided good news for the president, as Biden’s seven-point lead from earlier in the month dropped by a full five points, to just two points.
The previous Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, released September 4, showed Biden with a 49 percent to 42 percent lead over the president.
In the subsequent three and a half weeks, Biden has lost two points, while Trump has gained five points.
Notably, the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released on Tuesday was completed before the president announced on Saturday, September 26, the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The current Real Clear Politics Average of Polls shows Biden with a 6.1 point lead over President Trump. With five weeks until the election, Biden is performing 2.4 points better in the Real Clear Politics Average of Polls when compared to Hillary Clinton five weeks out from election day in 2016, when she was leading President Trump by 3.7 points.
On election day 2016, Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College vote and the presidency to Donald Trump by a margin of 306 to 232, despite winning the national popular vote by two points.
As Breitbart News has reported, given the anticipated greater margin of victory for Joe Biden in blue states such as California and Massachusetts in 2020, compared to Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in those states in 2016, Joe Biden could possibly win the national popular vote by as much as four points in 2020 and still lose the Electoral College and the presidency.
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