By Dave Andrusko
A quick look at two polls released today show the impact of third party candidates on the fortunes of front runners, President Biden and former President Trump.
Analyzing the findings of a Harvard CAPS/Harris survey, The Daily Caller’s Mary Lou Masters writes
Former President Donald Trump widened his lead over President Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup by 1 point and is winning by 6 points in a three-way race with newly-independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a Monday poll.
Trump is beating Biden 46% to 41%, with 14% being undecided, which is up from 44% to 40% in September, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris survey. In a three-way race with Kennedy garnering 19% of the share, Trump held 39% support compared to Biden’s 33%, with 9% remaining undecided.
The former president’s margin increases by 2 points against Biden in a four-way matchup with Kennedy and Cornel West, who garnered 3% support, according to the poll. For a head-to-head matchup, a three-way and a four-way race, Trump is leading the field among independent voters at 39%, 31% and 31% respectively.
But an “exclusive poll,” conducted by USA Today/Suffolk University, “suggests that Trump and Biden are tied with 41% support for a 2024 rematch,” according to Susan Page, Sudiksha Kochi, Savannah Kuchar, and Karissa Waddick:
It’s a tie: One year before the presidential election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump each command 37% of the vote in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll − with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. costing Trump what would have been a narrow lead.
Kennedy, scion of the nation’s most revered Democratic family, won 13% of the vote in a hypothetical match-up, drawing voters who by 2-1 said they would otherwise support the probable Republican nominee.
Progressive activist Cornel West, who also plans an independent campaign, is at 4%. His supporters would break to Biden if he weren’t on the ballot. …
An early October Reuters/Ipsos survey found that Kennedy would siphon off votes from both Trump and Biden, with the independent candidate receiving 14% support. Trump beat Biden by 2 points in the three-way race, with 9% saying they wouldn’t vote and 13% remaining unsure.
Digging deeper into the USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll we learn that
Without Kennedy in the mix, Trump would edge Biden 41%-39%, a lead within the survey’s margin of error, with West at 7%. Without West in the mix, Biden would edge Trump by an even narrower margin, 38%-37%, with Kennedy at 14%.With neither Kennedy nor West on the ballot, Biden and Trump would tie 41%-41%.