WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden and his leading Republican challenger Donald Trump remain locked in a tight election rematch, after a special prosecutor’s report commenting on the Democratic incumbent’s mental acuity, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The four-day poll, which closed on Monday, showed former President Trump with the support of 37% of respondents, compared with 34% support for Biden, at the edge of the survey’s 2.9 percentage point margin of error.
Some 10% said they would vote for other candidates; 12% said they would not vote; and 8% refused to answer the nationwide poll conducted online with responses from 1,237 U.S. adults.
The poll was conducted in the days after Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report that declined to charge Biden for taking classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017, but also described him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The White House has sharply disputed that characterization.
The finding showed a closer race than a poll last month that found Trump holding a 6 percentage point lead.
It also showed that one potential major political liability facing Trump is the ongoing four criminal prosecutions he faces. One in four self-identified Republicans and about half of independents responding said they would not vote for Trump if he was convicted of a felony crime by a jury.
A nationwide survey does not capture the subtleties of the electoral college contest that will be decided this fall in just a handful of competitive states. The Electoral College results are the final determinant of the presidential election outcome.
Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler