President Joe Biden's lead over former President Donald Trump suddenly ended in one poll, pointing to a competitive race between the two candidates ahead of the November election.
Biden and Trump both appear poised to win their party's primary elections after securing crucial victories on Super Tuesday, setting up a rematch of the 2020 election. Last week, several polls showed Biden with a lead over Trump, a shift from weeks of national polls projecting a Trump victory in November.
However, on Monday, a poll that last week had Biden winning now showed Trump narrowly regained his advantage, indicating that the American public is closely divided about how they plan to vote in the general election.
The Morning Consult poll, which surveyed 6,300 registered voters from March 8 to 10, found that 43 percent of respondents plan to vote for Biden, while 44 percent said they support Trump.
This marked a drop from the prior week's poll when 44 percent of respondents said they would vote for Biden and 43 percent said they planned to back Trump.
The latest Morning Consult poll, however, did offer Biden some good news. It found that voters' concerns about his age dropped following his fiery State of the Union address, which saw him take on crucial 2024 campaign issues such as abortion, immigration and the economy.
Sixty-five percent of voters said they believe Biden is "too old" to be president, while 30 percent disagreed. The week before, 68 percent agreed he was too old, while only 26 percent disagreed.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point.
Newsweek reached out to Biden and Trump's campaigns for comment via email.
Other recent surveys have also shown Biden with a lead over Trump.
An Emerson College poll conducted from March 5 to 6 among 1,350 registered voters found Biden leading Trump by two percentage points in a head-to-head matchup. Fifty-nine percent of respondents supported Biden, while 49 percent said they planned to back Trump.
However, the Emerson poll found that when other candidates are included in the survey, Biden's advantage disappears.
In a poll including other parties, Trump led with 43 percent, to Biden's 42 percent. Meanwhile, independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West received 6 percent and 2 percent of support, respectively. One percent of voters said they planned to support Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Of those candidates, Stein, who is running to Biden's left, will likely have the most ballot access in November, including in key swing states Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin. Kennedy, who polls suggest siphons more voters away from Trump, has gained ballot access in at least two battleground states, Arizona and Georgia.
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
