Donald Trump may have been pushed to the corner by his multiple legal cases but that hasn’t apparently driven voters away from him, new poll results published on Monday showed.
The Matchups: Trump took away the support of 49% of the registered voters compared to President Joe Biden‘s 43%, the results of a nationwide online survey by Harvard CAPS-Harris poll conducted on May 15-16. About 1,660 registered voters were contacted for the purpose.
Eight percent said they didn’t know or weren’t sure.
In April, 48% sided with Trump and 43% with Biden, while 9% chose neither
A red flag for Biden was that he had less support among Democrats than the support Trump had among Republicans. The president was picked by only 86% of the Democrats surveyed by the poll, while Trump was backed by 93% of the Republican respondents.
Trump also had more support among independent voters (47%) compared to Biden’s (36%), while 17% remained undecided.
When those respondents who said they didn’t know or weren’t sure were asked to pick between the two candidates, Trump received majority support. The tally was 53% to 47% in favor of Trump, while in April the breakup was 52% to 48%. Trump’s lead over Biden has increased from 4% in April to 6% in May.
When Robert Kennedy Jr was included on the ballot, Trump was still in the lead, although by the singularity of votes.
Here’s how a three-way race is expected to pan out:
| May Poll | April Poll | |
| Trump | 43% | 44% |
| Biden | 39% | 38% |
| Kennedy | 12% | 12% |
| Don’t Know/Unsure | 5% | 5% |
Trump, though still leading, saw his lead over Biden shrink by a point from April.
About seven in 10 voters said they have decided whom they will vote for, although among independents this percentage was a more modest 56%. Among Trump voters, 70% said they have made up their minds, while a more modest 67% of Biden voters said they have made up their minds.
VP Pick: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis received the most support as the potential running mate for Trump, with 12% of all voters preferring him. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy received 9% and 8% support, respectively. Incidentally, all three were once Republican presidential primary candidates and have since then withdrawn from the race.
The rest of the list, including Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), received 5% or less votes.
The poll found that picking Scott gave Trump more traction with Democrats, Hispanics, and independents, while Ramaswamy gave him more clout with the Republicans.
Approval Rating: Biden’s approval rating (44%) remained steady at depressed levels, which is a function of voters’ perception of the economy and their personal financial situation. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents said the country was on the wrong track, while only 33% said it was on the right track. Eight percent said they didn’t know or weren’t sure.
A whopping 60% had negative perceptions about the state of the economy, with only a little more than half as much saying the economy was on the right track. Fifty-eight percent said the economy was weak compared to 42% who said it was strong.
Over half of the respondents said their personal situation was either fair or poor.
Trump has his sore spots too. Fifty-five percent of the respondents think Trump has committed crimes for which he should be convicted, while 50% see him as a threat to democracy and a similar percentage think his legal cases make it impossible for him to be a viable candidate for president.
However, 55% said they think Democrats were using the legal system in a biased way to take out a political opponent.
If Trump is convicted by a jury in any of the criminal cases he is facing, the two-way matchup between him and Biden becomes a dead heat, the poll found. This may not haunt the former president, as trials relating to the key criminal cases — the Georgia election subversion case, the classified document case, and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot case may not start ahead of the election.
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