After Biden’s withdrawal, Kamala Harris leads Trump in a recent survey

In one of the first nationwide presidential surveys since US President Joe Biden halted his reelection campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris is only defeating adversary Donald Trump.

The Reuters/Ipsos survey puts Harris ahead of Trump by two points, 44 percent to 42 percent. It took place in the two days following Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he was withdrawing from the campaign and supporting his vice president.

Harris,59, and Trump, who is now the more experienced candidate in the race at 78, were tied at 44% in the poll from the previous week.

Harris, the overwhelming frontrunner for the Democratic nomination who is raking in endorsements and donations as well as pledged delegates, narrowly trails Republican flag-bearer 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 leaving the race.

Harris’s performance in the polls, bolstered by the excitement among Democratic voters about the shakeup in the race, shows her apparently neutralizing the bounce that a nominee gets in the days after his or her party’s nominating convention.

In a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll conducted Monday, Trump edges Harris with 46 percent to 45 percent of US registered voters, with nine percent undecided.

If third-party candidates or independents are included in the contest, Trump and Harris are tied at 42 percent, with the others far behind.

The PBS News survey notably found that 87 percent of all Americans think Biden’s decision to drop out was the right move, a view that crossed partisan and generational lines.

A plurality of respondents (41 percent) said Biden’s decision increases Democrats’ chances of winning in November, compared to 24 percent who said it decreases the party’s 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 Real Clear Politics.