Trump holds slight lead in new poll, minority support for Biden declining
Democrat President Joe Biden is seeing considerable declines in support among racial minority voters, with Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump slightly leading the incumbent in a new poll.
According to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll conducted last week, Trump, the likely GOP nominee, held a slight lead over Biden, with 39% supporting the former president while 37% supported Biden, with 17% saying they plan to vote third party.
When the poll included third-party candidates, Trump led Biden 37% to 34%, with independent presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. getting 10% support.
The poll drew from a survey of 1,000 likely U.S. voters, which was conducted by phone last week, with the sample having a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The polling also found that Trump leads Biden among voters younger than 35 (37% to 33%) and leads with Hispanic voters (39% to 34%), while 20% of black and Hispanic voters said they will vote third party.
"Although Trump hasn't grown support among black voters, he has closed the deficit because third-party voters come off of Biden's support among blacks," said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk's Political Research Center, according to USA Today.
"A young voter or a person of color voting 'third party' is a vote away from President Biden, and a vote away from President Biden is a vote for Donald Trump."
Last September, a poll released by NBC News reported a considerable decline in support for Biden among African American and Hispanic voters between 2021 and 2023.
According to the NBC News poll, Biden’s job approval rating among African American voters dropped from 80% in 2021 to 63% in 2023, while approval among Latino voters declined from 61% to 43% during the same period.
New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn wrote in an analysis last year about the apparent erosion of support among minority voters for Biden, with the groups having been integral to his election victory in 2020.
"The results represent a marked deterioration in Mr. Biden's support compared with 2020 when he won more than 70 percent of nonwhite voters," Cohn wrote last year. "If he's unable to revitalize this support by next November, it will continue a decade-long trend of declining Democratic strength among voters considered to be the foundation of the party."
