A Sunday-published NBC News poll suggests that third-party presidential candidates may give President Joe Biden an advantage over former President Donald Trump in November.
Preliminary polling conducted prior to Election Day indicated that the contest between Biden and Trump would be close. Despite the fact that the former president has recently appeared to be in the lead in a number of crucial swing states, including Arizona and Michigan, Biden has been favored in a number of national polls, frequently by a narrow margin of percentage points.
A number of third-party and independent candidates have surfaced in the run-up to November, amid widespread voter dissent towards the presumed presidential nominees of the two main parties, Biden and Trump.
Democratic strategists had previously cautioned that independent candidates could jeopardize Biden’s prospects, but a survey published by NBC News on Sunday revealed that third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may wind up stealing votes from Trump. Based on the responses of 1,000 adult voters in the United States, the poll, which was conducted from April 12 to 16, indicates that Trump would have a two-percentage-point advantage over Biden in a hypothetical Presidential rematch in November. On the other hand, Biden held a two-point advantage over Trump when voters were presented with a five-way ballot that also included Kennedy Jr., Biden, Trump, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and independent Cornel West.
Biden (39 percent), Trump (37 percent), Kennedy Jr. (13 percent), Stein (3 percent), and West (2 percent) were the outcomes of the five-way matchup. Biden lost 7% of his electors to Kennedy Jr., whereas the former president lost 15%.
The margin of error for the survey is 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus.
Newsweek requested comment from the campaigns of Biden and Trump via email.
Kennedy Jr., a nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and the son of former U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, initially declared his candidacy as an independent candidate prior to launching his campaign.
Once a supporter of Kennedy Jr.’s campaign, the former president has since gained the backing of numerous conservatives due to his skepticism regarding vaccines and other matters. Trump, on the other hand, has since changed his mind regarding his earlier this month campaign video in which he claimed that the independent “is the most radical left candidate in the race.”
According to an email from Stefanie Spear, the campaign press secretary for John F. Kennedy Jr., Trump and Joe Biden were “the two most unpopular candidates in living memory” at the time. Spear further stated that Kennedy Jr. was surpassing “the right-left paradigm.”
The majority of respondents to the survey conducted on Sunday do not support either Biden or Trump. A majority of respondents (52 percent) expressed a somewhat or very negative sentiment towards Biden, whereas 53% held the same view regarding Trump. Additionally, 32% of respondents expressed an overall negative opinion of Kennedy Jr.
This survey was conducted by Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates and Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. Horwitt told NBC News, “Americans don’t agree on much these days, but voters’ desire to tune out this election unites the nation more than anything else.”
