President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump nearly share honors in a hypothetical match-up for the 2024 general election, a new poll found.
What Happened: Biden scored 48% support from registered voters nationally, with Trump not far behind with 47% support, the results of the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll published on Tuesday showed. Five percent of the voters said they were undecided.
The poll surveyed 1,582 adults from Jan. 29 through Feb. 1.
The equation has not changed much as the widest gap separating the two since August 2023 has been three points.
A party-wise breakdown of the responses shows preference along the party lines. Ninety-one percent of the Democrats favored Biden and 93% of the Republicans backed Trump, while 5% of the Democrats and 6% of the Republicans said they would vote for Trump and Biden, respectively.
Independent voters can tilt the tables, the poll found. Fifty percent of the independents favored Trump over Biden, while 42% supported Biden.
What complicates the equation is Trump’s legal overhangs. When asked about their choice if Trump were to be convicted of a crime, 51% said they would prefer Biden in that scenario compared to 45% of the voters, who said they would still back Trump. Five percent said they were undecided.
The percentage of Republicans who would vote for Trump even if he was convicted was 88%, down from the 93% who professed support for him earlier.
“The picture going forward in the likely matchup between Biden and Trump remains unchanged with one major exception,” says Lee Miringoff, Director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.
“Right now, a Trump conviction would change the equation in Biden's favor.”
Will Haley Make A Difference: The poll also explored the possibility of the chances former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has against Biden if she were the Republican nominee. Biden led Haley by a 46%-45% margin. Haley was found to fare better than Trump among independents in a matchup with Biden.
She had a solid 12-percentage point lead over Biden among independents compared to a more modest 8-point for Trump.
Approvability of Biden, Trump: In line with other poll findings, a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job as the president (54%-40%). The proportion of voters who held unfavorable and favorable impressions about Biden stood at 53% and 40%, respectively.
Trump fared a tad below Biden on this count. Forty percent had a favorable impression about him versus 55% who had unfavorable impressions. That said, Republicans appear to have the mindset to condone him. Three-fourths of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents weren’t very concerned or not concerned at all that Trump is too extreme for the general election.
Biden’s rating on key election issues continues to languish. Twenty-nine percent of Americans approve of how he is handling immigration, and 54% disapprove of his economic policy, which is popularly called Bidenomics.
While Biden touts solid job creation and strong GDP growth as measures of the success of his economic policy, the general population is worried about the inflationary pressure that remains elevated and the indiscriminate corporate layoffs.
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