Nearly five months before the presidential election, Donald Trump has lost his lead in national opinion polls.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will face off against incumbent President Joe Biden in November, and polls so far have projected the outcome of the 2020 rematch to be close, with most surveys showing the two candidates statistically tied or with a slight lead.
But Biden is gaining ground, according to an Echelon Insights poll: A survey of 1,013 voters conducted June 10-12 found that 48% would vote for Biden and 47% for Trump if the presidential election were held today.
The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percentage points, making the two statistically tied. When third-party candidates are included, Trump regains a slight lead: 43 percent say they will vote for Trump, while 42 percent say they will vote for Biden.
Photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images
Still, the poll marks a shift in support from Trump to Biden. The company's last poll, conducted in May, gave Trump a three-point lead over Biden with 49% of the vote, to Biden's 46%.
Newsweek A representative for Trump was contacted via email for comment on the matter.
The survey comes amid a wave of favorable public opinion polls for the incumbent president. According to poll-tracking site VoteHub, which compiles an average of polls from highly rated pollsters rated “A” or “B” over the past 28 days, Biden has a slim lead of 0.1 percentage points, with 45.9% of the vote to Trump's 45.8%.
Meanwhile, polling and forecasting website FiveThirtyEight used a simulated forecast to predict that Biden would win the election.
But while national polls are interesting, the 2024 presidential election is likely to be decided by just a handful of key battleground states, because the US Electoral College system awards each state a set number of votes based on population.
A presidential candidate must secure 270 electoral votes to win, and winning the national popular vote does not guarantee success.
Meanwhile, other polls suggest Trump has a lead, and with five months left until voters cast their ballots, it is still too early to predict the outcome of the election.
Biden and Trump will face off in the first of two debates scheduled for June 27 in Atlanta. The presidential election is on November 5.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.
