Biden unwavering about staying in race, but new poll shows Harris performing better

(TND) — Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly outperformed former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical matchup in a new survey from Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi.

The poll from Amandi’s firm, Bendixen & Amandi, was conducted after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance sparked calls for someone to replace him on the ticket.

Voters were asked in the poll if they would vote for Harris or Trump were the election held today.

Harris topped Trump 42% to 41%, with 12% saying they were undecided.

She did better than her boss in the poll. Biden trailed Trump in the survey, 42% to 43%, with 10% undecided.

And Harris outperformed two other Democratic options, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Hillary Clinton, who isn’t being discussed as a possibility, polled slightly better than Harris.

It’s all speculative, as Biden hasn’t wavered, at least publicly, about staying in the race.

The president told Democratic lawmakers in an open letter Monday that he’s “firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.”

And he said in an interview last week with ABC News that he views himself as the most qualified person “to be president or win this race.”

But at least nine House Democrats reportedly want Biden to step aside.

“Nothing has been tamped down at this point,” Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee said.

The Democratic National Convention is still over a month away, plenty of time for Biden and his party to agree to move forward with someone younger and without the concerns over their mental and physical capacity to do the job.

Biden has made it more difficult by being so adamant that he’s staying in the race, McKee said.

“Because of that lousy debate performance, it concerns all Democrats yoked with Biden who are seeking reelection on the same ballot,” McKee said.

But the fact that the poor debate performance came so early, before the convention, could be a stroke of luck for Democrats.

Democrats “have this moment to change horses if they want to,” he said.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen, president of RMG Research Inc., said his group is finishing up a survey that shows Democratic voters by and large still think Biden is up for the job.

“We're not sure how this is going to play out in the coming weeks,” Rasmussen said during an interview Tuesday morning with The National Desk. “The question of whether this leads him to stay in the race because the elites want him out, as he says, and the voters don't, depends on how he does in the press conference and other actions in the coming weeks.”

But not all voters want Biden to stay in the race.

The Bendixen & Amandi poll found just a third of voters think Biden should continue as the nominee.

Just 29% said Biden has the mental capacity and physical stamina to serve another four years based on what they saw in the debate.

But voters have their concerns with Trump, too.

Over half of people in the Bendixen & Amandi poll said they view another Trump presidency as a danger to democracy.

And 44% said they would vote for Biden regardless of the age-related concerns in order to deny Trump another term in the White House.

“The double-haters are a huge part of this electorate, and if you can get one of the (people) they hate out of there, that's a massive advantage in this race,” McKee said.

The Pew Research Center recently found that a quarter of Americans hold unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump. That makes them the least-liked pair of presidential candidates in at least three decades.

McKee said Trump is “a historically weak candidate,” which is getting lost amid the Democratic Party “civil war.”

“He's historically weak, and the fact that someone who had one of the worst debate performances in American history showed hardly any movement in terms of support ... it screams that Trump is a terribly weak candidate,” he said.

Trump has a deep base of support. Republicans love him.

But McKee said Trump isn’t popular among the full electorate.

“There's no middle ground” with Trump’s support, he said.

Trump generally doesn't act like he cares about the swing voter, McKee said.

Of course, Republicans like Biden about as much as Democrats like Trump, he said. And all of that speaks to the political polarization now, he said.

Biden, weakened by his debate performance, might “gallop his three-legged horse to the end of the election,” McKee said.

But if he’s replaced, Harris is the most logical alternative.

It would be problematic for the party to skip over a woman of color who is the sitting vice president.

However, Harris has never been popular, McKee said. And he sees Whitmer or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as stronger options, though they suffer from a lack of national recognition at this point.

The Bendixen & Amandi poll was actually the first in recent weeks to show Harris topping Trump.

Other polls, including one out Tuesday from Emerson College, show Trump winning in a potential matchup with the vice president.

The Emerson College poll had Trump at 49% to Harris’ 43%, with 8% undecided.

That poll showed Trump would also win a rematch with Biden.

“Since before the first presidential debate, former President Trump’s support remains at 46%, while President Biden’s support has decreased two percentage points,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a news release. “Notable shifts away from Biden occurred among independent voters, who break for Trump 42% to 38%; last month they broke for Biden 43% to 41%.”

McKee also noted that these polls should be taken with a grain of salt.

Nothing shows a clear advantage for either side, he said.

Harris’ lead over Trump and Trump’s lead over Biden in the Bendixen & Amandi poll both fall within the survey’s margin of error.

But that doesn’t mean it’s pointless to discuss how possible alternatives to Biden would do against Trump.

Despite Biden’s insistence that he’s staying in the race, McKee said he doesn’t see the chatter fading.

“If it keeps going on, it might be enough to force him out,” he said.