Trump leads Biden by 5 points with RFK on the ballot: Reuters/Ipsos poll

A new poll conducted by Reuters and Ipsos has found that Donald Trump's lead over Joe Biden increases when Robert F Kennedy Jr. is included on the ballot, shooting up from 2 percent to a 5-point average nationally. 

The results suggest that more Democrats than Republicans are willing to abandon their party and support the independent candidate.

According to the poll, in a head-to-head matchup between Trump and his successor, the former edged out the latter by just 2 percent, garnering 38 and 36 percent of the vote, respectively. A full 26 percent of respondents said they either planned to vote for someone else, or did not know who to cast their ballot for.

When Kennedy was listed alongside Trump and Biden, he picked up 16 percent of the vote. That leaves Trump at 36 percent support, beating out Biden's 31 percent.

In the all-too-crucial swing states, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia, Trump maintained a 5-point lead over Biden when RFK Jr was presented as an option.

The poll found that a majority of voters, 54 percent, agreed that "immigration is making life harder for native-born Americans."

While voters viewed Trump as the better candidate when it came to the issue of border control, as well as others such as the economy and tackling crime, the former president could still face challenges as the result of his ongoing legal battles.

When asked whether they would vote for Trump if he was convicted of a felony crime by a jury, nearly a third of Republicans said no.

The poll was conducted via the internet between Dec. 5 and 11, and surveyed 4,411 adults across the United States.

As Reuters reports, third-party candidates have swung elections in the past. In 1992, for example, Ross Perot managed to pull enough support away from Republicans that Democrat Bill Clinton became president.