Vice President Kamala Harris is narrowly leading rival Donald Trump in a national presidential poll released Tuesday, one of the first conducted since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign.
Harris holds a two-point lead over Trump, 44 percent to 42 percent, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. This survey was conducted in the two days following Biden’s Sunday announcement that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing his vice president.
In the previous week's poll, Harris, 59, and Trump, 78, were tied at 44 percent.
Harris, the overwhelming frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, is gaining endorsements, donations, and pledged delegates, but she narrowly trails Trump in another survey also released Tuesday.
Both results are within the polls' margins of error.
The new surveys followed both the Republican National Convention, where Trump formally accepted the party's presidential nomination, and Biden's exit from the race.
Harris's performance in the polls, bolstered by Democratic voter enthusiasm following the shakeup in the race, appears to have neutralized the typical bounce a nominee receives after their party's nominating convention.
In a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll conducted Monday, Trump edges Harris with 46 percent to 45 percent of registered voters, with nine percent undecided.
If third-party candidates or independents are included, Trump and Harris are tied at 42 percent, with the others trailing significantly.
The PBS News survey found that 87 percent of Americans believe Biden’s decision to drop out was the right move, a view shared across partisan and generational lines.
A plurality of respondents (41 percent) said Biden's decision increases the Democrats' chances of winning in November, compared to 24 percent who said it decreases their odds and 34 percent who said it makes no difference.
Both surveys come in the aftermath of Trump surviving a shock assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
Trump maintains a very narrow advantage of 1.6 percentage points against Harris, according to an average of polls collated by RealClearPolitics.
