A very bad poll for Joe Biden: One of the first major polls released after his official re-election announcement has Biden losing, badly to Donald Trump
Joe Biden Has a Problem
Two weeks ago, President Joe Biden officially announced that he was running for a second term as president.
In recent months, polls have shown that while Biden’s approval rating is low and concerns have a great deal of concern about his age, Biden has led most head-to-head general election polls against Donald Trump.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll, for instance, had Biden leading by three points, which led Trump to rip the newspaper as “the Globalist inspired Wall Street Journal, one of the worst, and most partisan, media outlets anywhere.”
However, a new poll this week from ABC News and the Washington Post poses bad news for the incumbent president.
According to the poll, 68 percent of Americans feel that Biden is too old for another term as president, although 44 percent of respondents said the same about Trump.
The poll also has Biden’s approval rating at 36 percent, the lowest on record for any president at this stage of his presidency.
In a hypothetical Trump/Biden matchup, the poll said, “44% of Americans say they’d definitely or probably vote for Trump, 38% for Biden, with 12% undecided. When the undecideds are asked how they lean, it’s 49-42%, Trump-Biden.”
“This ABC/WaPo poll is a four alarm fire for the Biden WH and Democratic Party. Holy moly these head to head and fitness numbers. Sitting at 36% – 56% approve/disapprove. Yowza,” Republican strategist Scott Jennings tweeted over the weekend.
It isn’t all good news for Trump in the survey, however.
Of those asked, 56 percent say “he should face criminal charges in investigations of whether he tried illegally to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.” More than 50 percent also say that Trump should face charges for the two things being investigated by the special counsel: His handling of documents at Mar-a-Lago, and his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
As for the case in New York, involving payments to Stormy Daniels, on which Trump has already been indicted, “ninety percent of Democrats think the charges are appropriate; 82% of Republicans say they’re inappropriate. Independents split 47-40%.”
Biden leads Trump on “being honest and trustworthy,” per the poll, although even there he ranks poorly: Biden is viewed as honest by 41 percent of respondents, while 33 percent said the same of Trump.
Trump still has a big lead in the Republican nomination contest, according to the ABC News/Post poll.
In an “open-ended” poll, Trump leads with 43 percent support, compared to 20 percent for Ron DeSantis, while 27 percent said “no opinion” and another 10 percent said “other.” When given a listed choice, Trump leads with 51 percent, followed by DeSantis with 25 percent, Nikki Haley and Mike Pence with 6 percent each, and Tim Scott with 4 percent.
However, “substantial majorities of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they would be satisfied with either Trump (75%) or DeSantis (64%) as their party’s nominee,” the ABC News story on the poll said.
On the Democratic side, just 36 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want to see Biden as the nominee, while 58 percent would prefer someone else. However, no major figures in the party are challenging Biden in 2024.
There are some caveats to the new poll, however. It is being taken in May of 2023, 18 months before Election Day, and a lot could change. Also, it is considerably worse for Biden than most recent polls have been, indicating that this particular poll could represent an outlier.
The RCP Average of polls of a Trump/Biden generation election has Trump ahead by 1 percent, while recent polls have gone both ways, including a recent Economist/YouGov poll that listed the race as tied, and an Emerson poll in late April had Joe Biden ahead by 2 points. And that Wall Street Journal post had Biden ahead by 2.
MORE: Kamala Harris Is a Disaster
MORE: Joe Biden – Headed For Impeachment?
Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
