A shock poll has former President Donald Trump up by 10 points over his successor President Joe Biden.
The incumbent’s age and perceived incompetence by many is likely weigh him down. Voters are not seeing Bidenomics as a benefit as they see rising food prices, housing prices, and energy costs eating away at their paychecks.
By contrast, they likely see things as being better for their finances when Trump was president.
What the Poll Says
The Washington Post/ABC News poll found Trump leading Biden by a 52% to 42% margin.
Only 30% were favorable about Biden’s handling of the economy, 37% approved of his overall job performance, and 56% disapproved of his handling of the economy.
The Real Clear Politics Average puts Trump ahead of Biden by a 45.7% to 44.1% margin.
Sixty-two percent said the Democratic Party should nominate someone other than Joe Biden.
Americans View Both Candidates as Corrupt
Recent polling shows that voters view both Trump and Biden as corrupt.
Trump faces an avalanche of criminal charges and civil litigation by the State of New York over his improper valuation of several properties, including Mar-a-Lago and his Trump Tower penthouse.
Biden meanwhile faces an impeachment inquiry into his potential involvement in his son Hunter’s corrupt business dealings ― those with organized criminal enterprises in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Romania, and with entities linked to Chinese intelligence ― that could undermine his public standing.
A Yahoo!/YouGov poll of 1,636 people found that 48% think Biden broke the law regarding Hunter’s business deals, and 31% thought otherwise. It also showed that 41% thought Trump was more corrupt, while 36% thought Biden was more corrupt. The 2024 election will be the first election in history in which polling shows that voters regard both candidates as corrupt and one is under criminal indictment.
Biden’s age clearly is a sticking point that will not go away.
Voters See Biden as Old and Frail
Voters overwhelmingly look at Biden as old and frail. Trump might also be old, but he is not seen as frail.
Axios reports that Democrats privately worry about Biden’s gait and balance, especially since he fell in June at the Air Force Academy’s commencement ceremony.
He has worn athletic shoes since to keep him from losing his footing.
Also, the elderly chief executive has used the stairs at the bottom of Air Force One to avoid embarrassment, like in March 2021 when he repeatedly fell climbing into the presidential plane.
An AP/NORC poll taken last month showed that 77% of voters thought Biden was too old to be president. The Washington Post/ABC News poll similarly found that 74% of Americans think Biden is too old.
Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.
Trump Indictment Strategy Backfiring on Democrats
“When you think about what Democrats have done up and down the East Coast, in recent months, of indicting their top political opponent Donald Trump, 91 counts, all these different jurisdictions, and he’s beating Biden in the polls — it shows that that strategy of indicting Republicans has backfired horrifically for them,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway said during a Fox News appearance.
With polling like this, it is hardly surprising that rumors suggest Democrats might want to draft someone like former First Lady Michelle Obama or California Gov. Gavin Newsom to replace Biden on the ticket.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst 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. He writes opinion columns for a conservative political perspective.
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