FiveThirtyEight’s top politics stories this week

[FiveThirtyEight]( Popular in Politics Thursday, July, 04, 2024 [1. Would Kamala Harris be a stronger candidate than Biden?]( [Would Kamala Harris be a stronger candidate than Biden?]( On Thursday, June 27, President Joe Biden had one of the worst debates for an incumbent president in recent memory. According to a [538/Ipsos poll]( conducted after the debate using Ipsos’s [KnowledgePanel]( the average debate watcher thought the president did “poor” (on a scale from “terrible” to “excellent”), and only 21 percent thought he performed best in the debate. By contrast, although former President Donald Trump turned in just an “about average” performance that included [numerous lies]( 60 percent of debate watchers told 538/Ipsos they thought he performed the best. And according to [538’s average]( Trump’s margin in national polls has increased by 2 percentage points since the debate. [Read more]( [2. What the polls say after the first presidential debate]( [What the polls say after the first presidential debate]( Unless you live under a rock, you probably heard about the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump last Thursday. Biden's [halting performance]( on the debate stage looks to [have exacerbated voters' concerns]( about whether he has the mental and physical fitness to serve another term as president. Although Trump spent much of the debate [repeatedly pushing falsehoods]( viewers came away with a pretty concrete opinion [that he'd won the debate]( — or, at the very least, that Biden had lost it. [Read more]( [3. Voters are mad as hell in the UK and France]( [Voters are mad as hell in the UK and France]( There is [a lot of voting happening around the globe this year](. Heck, there's a lot of voting happening around the globe this week. On Thursday, voters [go to the polls in the United Kingdom]( where the center-right Conservative Party, which has been in power for 14 years, is expected to be trounced by the center-left Labour Party. And last weekend, [France held the first round of voting in snap parliamentary elections]( with the far-right National Rally party seeing historic success. Now, centrist and left parties are attempting to unify to stop the National Rally from making even more gains in runoff elections this Sunday. [Read more]( [4. What Trump's VP pick could mean for 2028]( [What Trump's VP pick could mean for 2028]( Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce his vice presidential pick any day now (although the smart money is on [sometime next week](. The [three front-runners]( for the job, according to various reports, are North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sens. Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance. [Read more]( [5. What if Biden or Trump suddenly leaves the 2024 race?]( [What if Biden or Trump suddenly leaves the 2024 race?]( What would happen if a major-party candidate died or abruptly dropped out of the presidential race before Election Day? [Read more]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe](