How Biden would have fared against Trump if he had never dropped out, according to a new YouGov poll

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Politics is full of “what ifs” — and one of the biggest in 2024 is what would have happened if Joe Biden had remained in the presidential race.

A new YouGov poll explores just that, asking Americans how they would have voted if the veteran Democrat had stayed the course. Although we don't yet know the final outcome of the presidential race, the speculative polls suggest that replacing Biden with Kamala Harris was the right move for the Democrats.

According to the 1,103 citizens surveyed by YouGov between November 1 and November 3, Trump would have been seven points ahead of his former rival in the race with Biden.

Only 41 percent of poll respondents said they would have supported the president's bid for a second term, compared to 48 percent who would have supported Trump had the original race been held. In contrast, 49 percent say they will now support Harris, while 46 percent are for the Republican.

The number of “I'm not sure” or “wouldn't vote” responses was 8 percent for Biden-Trump, more than double the three percent who gave the same answer for Harris-Trump.

In terms of demographics, Harris sees an identical eight-point increase over Biden among male and female voters. The poll shows that 52 percent of female voters support the vice president, while 44 percent support their boss. The percentage of male voters choosing Harris over Biden increases from 37 for the former candidate to 45 for his successor.

Harris has seen the largest increase in support among Hispanic voters: 56 percent support her, over 37 percent support Biden, an increase of 19 percentage points. Black voters favor Harris over Biden 81 to 71 and white voters increased from 35 to 42.

Although the numbers are based on a hypothetical scenario and do not take into account what could have happened in the election campaign with Biden on the ballot, the results are within the margin of error, suggesting that the Democrat would not have done well against Trump.

That's exactly why Biden's allies encouraged him to abandon his campaign and hand the baton to Harris, a younger candidate who can identify with a large group of voters.

Current national polls show Harris narrowly ahead of Trump in what is expected to be a very close election.

Official election results are not expected to be available on Tuesday evening. But even if it will take several days to determine the winner of the 2024 presidential election, Democrats can be confident that replacing Biden with Harris will only improve their chances of defeating Trump.