Donald Trump’s Polling Lead Evaporates

Donald Trump has lost his polling lead over Joe Biden, according to one ongoing tracker.

In March, the former president and the incumbent won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Republican and Democratic nominations for the 2024 presidential election. Polls have so far shown that the results will be tight, as the pair are statistically tied in most surveys, or enjoying only marginal leads.

However, according to a new Morning Consult poll, Trump has now lost his lead over his rival. On May 28, Trump was ahead of Biden by 2 percentage points, but he is now behind him by 1 percentage point. With Biden enjoying 44 percent of the potential vote share to Trump’s 43 percent, this marks the first time the Democrat has led the Republican since early May.

The survey of 10,260 registered voters was conducted June 7-9. The margin of error is +/- 1 percentage point.

Newsweek contacted a representative for Trump by email to comment outside of normal business hours.

The poll comes after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush-money payment made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump, who denied having an affair and any wrongdoing, said the case was politically motivated and his lawyers have said they are appealing. Since the verdict he has faced a number of negative polls.

However, while national polls are interesting, due to the U.S’s Electoral College system, which awards each state a certain number of electoral votes based on population, state polls are more reliable in determining the result of the election. A presidential candidate needs to secure 270 electoral votes for victory, and winning the national popular vote doesn’t guarantee success.

Other polls have suggested Trump is in the lead, and with five months to go until voters cast their ballots, it is still too early to predict the outcome of the election.

Speaking to Newsweek, Thomas Gift, founding director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, in the U.K., said the polling change was “minor” and that “Biden and Trump are in a statistical tie.”

He said that small changes in support like we see with the Morning Consult poll are so minor that they’re practically trivial, concluding that Trump losing his margin is reflective of his recent criminal conviction is over-interpreting the data, and that the bottom line is that Biden and Trump are in a statistical tie.

Meanwhile, Mark Shanahan, who teaches American politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K., said there have been “ups and downs for both candidates.”

“It has been a week of ups and downs for both candidates,” he told Newsweek. “There’s a suggestion that Trump’s 34 felony convictions aren’t playing well with independents, and Biden’s presence on the Normandy beaches to commemorate D-Day played well with veterans and older voters.

“But the horrors in Gaza undermine Biden’s foreign policy credentials, and the Hunter Biden gun trial is sucking away positive oxygen at home. Meanwhile, Trump is enjoying the challenger’s advantage at the moment of being able to get back on the road, dispute everything Biden does while being accountable for nothing.

“The polls all remain within the margin of error in a tight race between two unpopular candidates. We’re still in the phony war with nothing much mattering polls-wide until the candidates get into their first 1:1 debate.”

The presidential election will take place on November 5.