The polls: A new poll shows President Joe Biden leading his predecessor Donald Trump by 47% to 40%. A WPA Intelligence Survey of 1,571 voters shows Biden leading Trump by a 47% to 40% margin.
The poll conducted between May 10 and 13 has a plus or minus 2.5% margin of error.
This contrasts with the Real Clear Politics average of polls that shows Trump leading Biden by a 43.8% to 42.8% margin. A shock Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted earlier this month showed Trump with a 44% to 38% lead over Biden.
The WPA Intelligence poll showed that Trump would drag down Republican candidates farther down the ballot. Democrats led Republicans by 47% to 42%. Without Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, Democrats and Republicans tied at 44% apiece.
WPA’s CEO Chris Wilson is aligned with the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down SuperPAC.
2024 Campaign Shaping Up to Be an Unpopularity Contest
The 2024 election is shaping up to be a contest over who is least unpopular.
“Trump would enter the 2024 race considerably weaker than where he stood on Election Day in 2020. Contrary to what one may hear on Truth Social, Trump’s indictment, in either the pending Georgia or federal cases, would energize Democrats, not Republicans,” Amanda Iovino, WPA’s Principal who oversaw the poll, said.
Polling has given Biden dismal reviews, but it’s still good enough to put him ahead of Trump.
Biden’s most recent approval rating as president puts him at 46% approval with 54% disapproval. Ordinarily that polling would be the kiss of death for a president seeking re-election. Gallup put Biden at 37% last month. He had the worst rating of any president at this point of their presidency of any one since World War II.
Voters told the Washington Post/ABC News poll earlier this month that they worried about Biden’s mental acuity. Only 32% told the pollsters that they thought Biden had the mental ability to make it through a second term.
A new Gallup poll put American confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the economy at 35%. Traditionally poor economic reviews have been the kiss of death for an incumbent president. Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980 due to the poor economy. The same was true in 1992 when George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton.
Fifty-four percent told the Washington Post/ABC News poll they thought Trump would be better on the economy.
Economy Unlikely to Help Trump
This time people are voting on personality instead of on the issues.
Trump is the only president in history to have never made it above 50% in the polls. Biden is disliked, but Trump is reviled by the voters he needs the most to regain the White House and become the first defeated ex-president since Grover Cleveland to come back and retake his former office.
Today, Trump’s polls are even worse than Biden’s. Only 32% say they had a favorable view of the former president compared with 62% who said they had an unfavorable impression.
“Despite Joe Biden’s unpopularity, our poll found that he would win re-election in a rematch against Donald Trump by a bigger margin than the one he had in 2020,” Iovino told The New York Post. “It’s clear from the data that Trump’s standing with Independents has weakened considerably since the 2020 election and that he has failed to attract new voters. This should surprise no one, as it is entirely consistent with last year’s election results among Trump-backed candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other states.”
Among Independents, Trump only had a 21% approval rating, and 71% disapproved of him.
Trump will have to get through Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis first to face Biden, and DeSantis is expected to join the race next week.
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John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
