There is no doubt that Democrats and the media hoped and presumed that former President Donald Trump's criminal conviction in New York would prove devastating to his bid for re-election to a second term, yet not only have those hopes been dashed but now President Joe Biden's campaign is sinking and the same voices are calling for his replacement after a disastrous debate performance.

Further proving the presumptions incorrect is a new poll that shows Trump handily defeating not just Biden but also his most likely replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, according to The Hill.

That poll also showed that Trump would just as easily beat another eight high-profile Democratic figures and prospective replacements as the nominee instead of Biden or Harris.

Trump winning over Biden

The pollsters at Emerson College surveyed 1,370 registered voters over the weekend and found that in a head-to-head matchup between former President Trump and President Biden, Trump would prevail 46-43%, with 11% undecided.

"Since before the first presidential debate, former President Trump’s support remains at 46%, while President Biden’s support has decreased two percentage points," executive director Spencer Kimball said. "Notable shifts away from Biden occurred among independent voters, who break for Trump 42% to 38%; last month they broke for Biden 43% to 41%."

Trump's margin of victory actually increased when other independent and third-party candidates were added to the mix, 44-40%, and the pollsters further discovered that Trump's base of support was more motivated to turn out to vote than Biden's base.

Trump would defeat any other Democratic candidate

The real story here, given the current push from Democrats and the media to oust the elderly and flailing and clearly diminished President Biden, however, is how former President Trump would fare against any of several likely replacement candidates for the incumbent.

The most likely of those prospective replacements is VP Harris, but Trump would defeat her by an even wider margin than Biden, 49-43%, with 8% undecided.

Emerson's pollsters also put forward a list of eight other possible replacements for Biden but Trump also defeated each of them in the survey by anywhere from 5-10 points.

That included Trump beating Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 48-42%, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 48-40%, former Vice President Al Gore, 47-42%, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 48-41%.

It also included Trump winning over Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 49-39%, Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg, 49-39%, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, 46-38%, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, 48-38%.

Trump ahead in nearly all of the polls

To be sure, that was just one poll and The Hill noted that there have been a couple of other recent polls that suggest that VP Harris would perform better against the former president, if not even narrowly defeat him.

That said, and at least for now, President Biden continues to be the presumptive Democratic nominee, and according to RealClearPolling's average of national general election polls, Trump not only maintains an average 3.3 point lead, he leads in virtually every major poll since the late June debate and holds comfortable margins ahead of Biden in all of the most important swing states.

As for the undisputed hopes of Democrats and the media that Trump's New York conviction would spell doom for his re-election campaign, RCP's graph of poll results reveals that he did suffer a brief decline in support immediately after that late May verdict, as did Biden, but has since recovered to where he was before while Biden's support has continued to plummet following the debate.