Vice President Kamala Harris, the new presumptive Democratic nominee, trails Republican nominee Donald Trump by 3 percentage points, according to a CNN poll released Wednesday and conducted after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.
The poll shows Trump leading Harris 49 percent to 46 percent nationwide, with the former president ahead 46 percent to 43 percent among independents. The surveyed voters had also responded to CNN polls held in April and June, both of which found Trump ahead of Biden by 6 points.
The poll results come as Harris emerged in recent days as the Democratic front-runner for the presidency following Biden’s withdrawal from the race. The 59-year-old vice president has secured enough delegates and is all but certain to be the Democratic nominee to face Trump, who clinched his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention last week and chose Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) as his running mate.
Only half of Harris’s supporters say their vote is more in support of her than against Trump. Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of those backing Trump say their vote is to show support for him rather than to oppose Harris.
Harris retains 95 percent of those who previously supported Biden, while Trump holds on to 92 percent of his former backers. Among those who initially stated they would support neither Trump nor Biden, 30 percent now favor Harris and 27 percent back Trump, with the rest choosing another candidate or not to vote this fall.
Other polls conducted after Biden abandoned his reelection campaign found Trump and Harris neck and neck, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Harris sparked outrage on Tuesday by declining to preside over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress Wednesday afternoon and choosing instead to give a speech at a sorority event in Indiana. House speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) slammed Harris’s absence as "inexcusable" and called for her to be "held accountable."