‘No clear leader:’ What can we learn from latest Biden-Trump poll numbers?

The race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump remains tight, even as the latest figures show a slight bit of separation between the two.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 41% of registered voters would cast their ballot for Biden, a Democrat, if the election were held today compared to 37% who would vote for Trump. Those figures are within the poll’s 4 percentage point margin of error for registered voters, making the race a statistical dead heat.

The latest numbers show slight separation since March when 39% said they planned to vote for Biden compared to 38% for Trump, the same figures posted for each candidate in February. The January poll showed Biden was the choice for 43% of voters compared to 38% for Trump.

“The 2024 presidential election has no clear leader among registered voters,” IPSOS said.

Trump’s legal woes are also weighing heavily on voters, the poll showed. Among those who said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, 13% said they would not do so if he were convicted of a felony by a jury before the November election. Twenty-five percent of likely Trump voters said they would not do so if he were serving time in prison.

Among Republicans as a whole, 24% said they would not vote for Trump if a jury found him guilty of a felony; 37% said they would not vote for him if he were in prison at the time of the election.

Trump is currently facing charges in four criminal cases, including falsifying business records around payments to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign; soliciting election fraud in trying to overturn the 2020 election results; pressuring Georga officials to overturn the 2020 election; and illegally removing classified documents from the White House and keeping them in a private home office.

The poll showed 74% thought the charges of soliciting election fraud were the most serious.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted April 4-8 based on a sampling of 1,021 people ages 18 and older. The poll included 291 Democrats, 290 Republicans and 317 Independents.