Former President Donald Trump has expanded his polling edge on President Joe Biden in recent weeks, according to multiple poll averages, though the race remains close—as Biden plans to continue campaigning amid mounting calls for him to drop out following last month’s debate.
Trump leads Biden by 3 points in RealClearPolitics’ poll tracker, a 1.5-point swing in Trump’s favor since the debate, and he leads by 3.2 points in FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker, a 3-point increase from June 27 and a 1.3-point jump since in a single week.
Trump is up by four points in both of Morning Consult’s weekly registered voter surveys, which noted a two-point increase materialized after the attempted assassination on Trump last weekend (Trump was also in the spotlight for the GOP convention this week, though polls have not captured voters’ sentiments after his Thursday night speech).
Trump led Biden 52%-47% among likely voters in a CBS News/YouGov survey conducted July 16-18, despite leading by just two points (50%-48%) in the first week of July.
Signs that Trump was expanding his lead appeared shortly after his debate with Biden, as a New York Times/Siena College survey and a Wall Street Journal survey conducted after the debate both found Biden trailed Trump by six points.
Trump leads Biden by three points in Pennsylvania—a state Biden essentially has to win to beat Trump—and Trump trails Biden by just three points in Virginia after losing by 10 points in 2020, according to a New York Times/Siena poll taken July 9-12.
An ABC News/Ipsos/Washington Post poll released last week found Biden and Trump are tied among registered voters, and Trump has a one-point lead if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an option, also a better-than-usual showing for Biden following the June 27 debate.
However, that poll also shows 67% think Biden should withdraw from the race, while 85% say Biden is too old to serve as president, up from 81% in April and 68% just over a year ago.
