SURVEY USA
Three months ago, roughly a month before Joe Biden challenged Donald Trump to debate, SurveyUSA conducted research to see what would happen if Joe Biden were to step down and be replaced by another Democratic nominee. This past weekend, SurveyUSA was mid-field re-asking some of those same questions when Donald Trump was fired upon while speaking at a campaign event in Pennsylvania – allowing us to see the immediate impact of that event.
Overall, when we compare April to July on SurveyUSA’s interactive tracking graph, little has changed, and what has changed is well within the survey’s margin of sampling error: Trump and Biden had been tied at 44% each, and Trump remains steady at 44% while Biden falls a single point to 43%. But within this weekend’s survey, Biden had been leading by 4 points, 46% to 42%, in the roughly half of the interviews conducted before the attack – and Trump leads by 5 in the interviews conducted after 6:30 pm ET on Saturday July 13 – a 9-point swing to the former President.
SurveyUSA urges caution in assigning too much significance to that movement: this is one survey, with half the responses gathered in the wake of a shocking event; the half-and-half split of the data means the sample size is relatively small; much is still unknown about the shooter and the event itself; immediate reactions often fade; there are nearly four months left in the campaign – but the before-and-after difference is statistically meaningful and should be noted.
An additional caveat, as noted in April: in a “real” campaign, voters would know much more about a potential replacement nominee than they do today. It’s impossible to mirror the actual environment that would exist if different candidates were the presumptive nominee, which would include both positive and negative messaging about names which today, for the most part, are not part of this conversation.
Returning to the head-to-head numbers:
- Should Joe Biden be the nominee, Donald Trump edges him by one point today, 44% to 43%, with 7% voting for a candidate from another party and 6% saying they are undecided. With the exception of the one-point decline for Biden, each of those numbers is exactly where it was in April. Trump leads by 6 points among men (down from a 13-point lead in April); Biden leads by 5 points among women (down from a 11-point lead in April.) Use the pull-down menus in SurveyUSA’s exclusive interactive tracking graphs to see the changes in other demographic subgroups over time.
- Should Biden step down and be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, she starts off 2 points behind Biden and loses to Trump by 3 points, 45% to 42%. 7% vote for a third-party candidate; 5% are undecided. Three months ago, Harris trailed Trump by 7 points among all likely voters. Harris runs 4 points behind Biden among Black voters, taking 62% of the Black vote as compared to Biden’s 66%; she runs 6 points ahead of Biden among very liberal voters, taking 88% of their votes compared to 82% for Biden.
- If Biden should instead be replaced on the ticket by former First Lady Michelle Obama, the race is tied, with she and Trump each taking 45% of the vote. 6% vote third-party; 4% are undecided. Both candidates are up a single point since April. Obama runs 5 points behind Biden in urban areas, taking 52% of the vote to his 57%, and 3 points behind him with men, taking 38% of the vote to his 41%. She is 7 points stronger than Biden among suburban women, taking 55% of the vote to Biden’s 48%; 6 points stronger in rural areas, taking 32% to Biden’s 26%; 6 points stronger among women, taking 51% of the vote to Biden’s 45%; and 6 points stronger among parents of children under age 18, where she takes 40% to Biden’s 36%.
- California Governor Gavin Newsom runs notably behind Joe Biden, losing to Trump by 11 points, 46% to 35%, with 10% voting for a third-party candidate and 8% undecided. This is effectively unchanged from April, when Newsom trailed Trump by 12. Newsom runs 16 points behind Biden among Black voters, where he takes 50% of the vote to Biden’s 66%. He is also 15 points behind Biden in urban areas, where he leads Trump by just 4 points, 42% to 38%; Biden leads by 24 points in urban parts of the country. There are no demographic subgroups where Newsom out-performs Biden.
As was the case in April, majorities of likely voters say both Donald Trump and Joe Biden should have stepped aside and not run this year. 52% say Trump should not have run (down slightly from 53% in the previous poll); 44% say he made the right decision (up slightly from 42%). 60% say Biden should not have run (down slightly from 62%); 31% say he made the right decision (up slightly from 30%).
Biden’s Net Job Approval was -15 in April, -16 today; 41% say they approve (19% strongly approve, 22% somewhat approve) of the job he is doing as President; 57% disapprove (15% somewhat, 42% strongly). Trump’s retrospective Net Job Approval was -7 in April, improving to -3 today; 48% say they approve of the job Trump did as President (27% strongly approve, 21% somewhat approve); 51% disapprove (11% somewhat disapprove, 40% strongly disapprove).
Fully crosstabbed results follow …
| About the Research / Filtering: SurveyUSA interviewed 1,400 adults from the entire United States 07/12/24 through 07/15/24. Of the adults, 1,186 were identified as being registered to vote; of the registered voters, 1,098 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the November general election and were asked the substantive questions which follow. This research was conducted online, using nonprobability sample of online adult panelists chosen randomly by Lucid Holdings LLC of New Orleans. The combined pool of survey respondents was weighted to US Census ACS targets for gender, age, race, education, and home ownership, and to recalled 2020 presidential vote. |
