Trump lead over Biden slips after former president’s conviction: Polling
Former President Trump’s lead over President Biden appears to have dipped slightly after he was convicted last week in the New York hush money criminal case, according to a recontact survey published Wednesday.
The New York Times/Siena College recontact poll, conducted June 3-4, included nearly 2,000 registered voters who had previously participated in either an April national survey or May survey of voters in six key battleground states.
Before the verdict, the group of recontacted voters favored Trump over Biden by 3 points, 48 percent to 45 percent. Those same respondents, when asked again about their preferences following the guilty verdict, only favored Trump over Biden by 1 point, 47 percent to 46 percent.
In the recontact survey, Trump lost 7 points of the support he had before the conviction: 3 percent say they will now vote for Biden, while 4 percent say they are undecided.
Biden, meanwhile, lost 4 percentage points of the support he had before Trump’s conviction: 1.5 percent say they will now back Trump, while 2.5 percent say they are now undecided.
The overall modest shift away from Trump, the Times reported, is most pronounced among young, nonwhite and disengaged Democratic-leaning voters. Among those who voted for Biden in 2020 but then said they planned on backing Trump in 2024, about a quarter now changed their minds and say they will vote for Biden.
Similarly, those who say they hate both candidates were roughly split before the verdict. Now, in the recontact survey, Trump lost one-fifth of those voters who had backed him, with half throwing their support behind Biden and the other half undecided.
The Times notes that recontacting surveys cannot provide an accurate view of the overall electorate, but it can be a useful way to track changes in people’s views over time.
Several polls taken in the immediate aftermath of the Trump conviction have pointed to similar trends, with slight movement toward Biden.
According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average, Trump and Biden are neck and neck, with Trump leading by less than 1 percentage point — well within most polls’ margins of error.
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