President Joe Biden is resisting calls by many in his party to step aside. But if he does, Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have the best chance at taking on former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll.
A poll from Democratic pollster Bendixen & Amandi, shared with Politico on Tuesday, shows Trump leading Biden 43%-42%, but Harris leading the former president 42%-41%, and Clinton leading him 43%-41%. Other possible Biden replacements, such as Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and Gavin Newsom (D-CA) trail Trump 40%-36% and 40%-37%, respectively.
The survey also examined possible Democratic replacement tickets with a vice presidential candidate. Among three proposed tickets, a Clinton-Harris ticket performed the best against Trump, beating him 43%-40%. A Harris-Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) ticket also defeated the former president, 42%-40%. The other proposed ticket, with Harris and Whitmer, would lose to Trump, 41%-39%.
Harris has been viewed as the most likely alternative should Biden drop out of the campaign, with other polls also showing her performing the strongest out of Democratic replacement candidates. Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election, has frequently said she would not run and reaffirmed her support for Biden immediately after the president’s disastrous debate last month.
As the discussion about whether Biden should step aside continues into its second week, his interview with ABC News on Friday and campaign events over the weekend have done little to quell concerns about his age and mental acuity.
While the poll shared by Politico on Tuesday showed Biden only trailing Trump by 1 percentage point, most other polls have the president in a deeper hole after the debate.
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A New York Times-Siena College poll released last week showed Biden losing to Trump with likely voters 49%-43% and trailing with registered voters 49%-41%, while a Wall Street Journal poll showed Trump leading Biden 48%-42% with registered voters. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Trump leading Biden 47.5%-44.1%.
Fewer than a dozen House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to step aside, as reports swirl that other Democrats have privately expressed doubts about the president’s ability to continue his candidacy against Trump.
