Politics is full of ‘what ifs’ - and one of the biggest in 2024 is what would have happened if Joe Biden had stayed in the presidential race.
A new YouGov poll looks at exactly that, surveying Americans on how they would have voted if the veteran Democrat had stayed the course. Although we still don’t know the final outcome of the presidential race, the speculative poll suggests replacing Biden with Kamala Harris was the right move for the Dems.
According to the 1,103 citizens YouGov surveyed between November 1-3, Trump would have been seven points ahead of his former rival in a race with Biden.
Only 41 percent of survey respondents said they would have supported the president’s bid for a second term, compared to 48 backing Trump, if the original race had been run. That compares to 49 percent saying they will back Harris now with 46 for the Republican.
The number of ‘not sure’ or ‘would not vote’ responses stood at eight percent for Biden-Trump, more than double the three percent who answered the same way for Harris-Trump.
In terms of demographics, Harris sees an identical increase of eight points among male and female voters over Biden. The survey shows 52 percent of women voters lending their support to the VP over 44 percent for her boss. The percentage of male voters choosing Harris over Biden jumps from 37 for the former candidate to 45 for his replacement.
Harris sees the largest jump in support from Hispanic voters, with 56 percent backing her over 37 percent for Biden, an increase of 19 points. Black voters favour Harris over Biden by 81 to 71 and white voters were up from 35 to 42.
Though the numbers are based on a hypothetical scenario, and don’t take into account what could have happened on the campaign trail with Biden on the ticket, the results are within the margin of error which indicates the Democrat would not have fared well against Trump.
It’s the exact reason why Biden’s allies encouraged him to concede his campaign and hand the baton to Harris – a younger candidate who can relate to a large population of voters.
Current national polling shows Harris narrowly leading Trump in what is expected to be an extremely close election.
Official election results will likely not be available on Tuesday evening. But even if it takes several days to determine the winner of the 2024 presidential election, Democrats can rest assured that replacing Biden with Harris may only improved their chances of defeating Trump.
