New polling indicates that President Joe Biden is losing a double-digit percentage of his 2020 supporters to former President Donald Trump. Both candidates are expected to become their party’s 2024 presidential nominees, but both remain unpopular.
Biden faces concerns about his age and mental competence, while Trump faces questions about his age and fitness for office. Most surveys show Trump leading Biden, including in key swing states where the election is expected to be decided. New polling from The New York Times and Siena College shows that 10% of voters who backed him in 2020 now plan to support Trump in November, while less than 0.5% of Trump’s 2020 backers plan to back Biden. Both politicians are largely unpopular among Americans, with polls indicating that the majority do not want either to run.
A poll conducted from February 25 to 28 showed that Donald Trump has 97% of his 2020 supporters’ support, while Biden only has 83% of his former voters’ support. Trump beat Biden by 5 points, with 48% for the Republican former president and 43% for the Democratic incumbent.
The polling consistently overestimates Trump while underestimating Biden, according to Michael Tyler, Biden-Harris 2024 communications director. The survey included 823 respondents with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%.
The Times/Siena polling analysis site ranks the Times/Siena as the No. 1 pollster in the country. The current RealClearPolitics average of national polls, including the Times/Siena data, shows Biden trailing Trump by about 2.3%, with an average of 45% support compared to his Republican rival’s 47.3%.
A Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey from January 16 to 22 found that Biden is between three and 10 points behind Trump in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Despite the data, Biden’s supporters argue that voters will ultimately support him over Trump’s and Republicans’ “extreme” agenda.
They point to Democrats’ successes in the 2022 and 2023 elections, particularly in campaigning on abortion access and raising alarms about the MAGA agenda.
Republicans, however, argue that voters will ultimately reject Biden despite Trump’s legal issues, viewing the current president as weak on the economy and foreign policy, and accusing Biden of making the country less safe through his border policies.
