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Kamala Harris can beat Trump easier than Biden (or anyone else) can, says new CNN poll [1]

['Carla Sinclair']

Date: 2024-07-02  

A new CNN poll conducted after last week's debate debacle shows Vice President Kamala Harris with a better chance of beating Donald Trump than does President Biden — or any other candidate, for that matter.

The survey asked 1,274 respondents between June 28–June 30 who would run strongest against the the convicted ex-president if the options were: Harris, Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And although Harris has taken a lot of flack when it comes to talk about her likability, she came out the winner in this poll. From The Hill:

Vice President Harris is running closer to former President Trump than President Biden is, according to a new poll. 45 percent of registered voters would support Harris in a hypothetical match-up with Trump. She is 2 percentage points behind the former president, who received 47 percent support in a head-to-head contest with Harris. On the other hand, Biden trailed Trump by 6 points in the poll. Trump is leading with 49 percent support in a match-up with the president, while Biden received 43 percent support. Another 4 percent said they would vote for someone else.

And from The Washington Post:

The candidate who runs the best against Trump? Harris, who trails by two points. … The other candidates trail by four to six points, in a poll with a margin of sampling error that is 3.7 points. No clear leader — but the idea that Harris runs worse than other candidates is simply not supported by the data. …In fact, across demographic groups, Harris outperforms Biden. Harris does noticeably better with women, independents and non-White voters. Those groups and younger voters are also more likely to view Harris favorably than they are to view Biden favorably (among respondents who had an opinion of the candidates). …Harris's two-point gap is not significantly different from Whitmer's five-point one. Perhaps Whitmer would be a better candidate than Harris and more easily surge past Trump. This poll can't tell us that — but no poll really could. What this poll does suggest is, instead, that the idea Harris is disadvantaged relative to other candidates has little merit. The final consideration is the one we began with: This is one poll. It's a good one, in polling terms, but different pollsters talking to different people can yield different results. It may still be the case that Biden collapses; it is still the case that he is walking a much narrower tightrope than he was a week ago. But this poll doesn't reinforce the idea that he is necessarily doomed.

The poll was released today as Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas publicly called for Biden to step aside. "President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2020," he said in a statement today, via USA Today. "He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."

Former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio has also publicly called for Biden to pass the baton to Harris. But so far, Biden, perhaps in denial, is gripping to that baton with a white-knuckled fist, and has yet to even have a conversation with his top Democratic colleagues on what the best path forward might be.

See more Kamala Harris posts on Boing Boing here.

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/02/kamala-harris-can-beat-trump-easier-than-biden-or-anyone-else-can-says-new-cnn-poll.html

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