Biden edges out Trump in post-debate poll

President Joe Biden has a small lead over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in new polling conducted since the first presidential debate last month.

Voters surveyed between July 9 and July 11 selected Biden when pitted against Trump, 50% to 48%, while 2% of respondents were undecided, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist National poll released Saturday.

The change is slight compared to a poll conducted by Marist prior to the debate, in which each candidate received 49% of respondents’ support.

“Despite a series of cataclysmic political events, including Trump’s felony convictions and Biden’s abysmal debate performance, the race for the White House remains essentially unchanged,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, in a statement. “But Biden needs to restore confidence among his party faithful that he can win. And Trump needs to tread very lightly during the Republican convention about Project 2025 and avoid positioning the GOP as too extreme.”

The bad news for Trump comes just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and amid a weekslong fallout since Biden’s debate performance.

Democratic strategists and lawmakers have overwhelmingly called for Biden to step aside and let another candidate run in November, given concerns that the 81-year-old president lacks the mental acuity to serve another term if elected.

Indeed, nearly two-in-three Marist polling respondents — 64% — said they did not believe that Biden had the mental fitness to serve as president, including 38% of Democrats.

But Biden’s lead is so small that it is still within the 3.3 percentage point margin of error.

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The Washington Examiner’s Byron York noted in a polling analysis this week that Trump led Biden by 2.9 percentage points in a RealClearPolitics average of recent national polls.

The survey was conducted among 1,174 registered voters in the United States through phone texts or online.