The latest CNN poll released on Sunday is bad news for President Biden. He’s running for re-election and there is little support for it if the polls are to be believed.
The usual disclaimers apply – it’s early yet, a poll is a snapshot in time, people lie to pollsters, yada, yada, yada. It is interesting to keep an eye on them, though, because Trump’s numbers are not falling and Biden’s are not rising, even as Trump begins his cycle of trials. Democrats have a lot riding on voters turning against Trump as he sits in a courtroom instead of being out on the campaign trail.
America’s malaise is real. Voters are fed up with what is happening in Biden’s America.
In a two-way race, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by 6 points. Toss in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Trump is even further ahead.
Trump’s support in the poll among registered voters holds steady at 49% in a head-to-head matchup against Biden, the same as in CNN’s last national poll on the race in January, while Biden’s stands at 43%, not significantly different from January’s 45%.
Looking back, 55% of all Americans now say they see Trump’s presidency as a success, while 44% see it as a failure. In a January 2021 poll taken just before Trump left office and days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 55% considered his time as president a failure.
🚨 CNN POLL:
— President Trump leads Biden 49% to 43% in a two-way race.
— President Trump leads Biden 42% to 33% including third party candidates.
— 55% say the Trump presidency was a success. 39% say the Biden presidency is a success. pic.twitter.com/0Xn0j7oVia
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 28, 2024
This poll is of registered voters, not likely voters. It is preferable to poll likely voters to get the most accurate results, as a general rule. Registered voters do not always vote. They can answer polling questions but if they don’t actually vote, it is useless information.
This presidential election is a unicorn. One former president is running against the current president. The problem for Joe Biden when he starts pontificating about what Trump will do if he is elected in November is that Trump has a record as president. All Trump has to do when Biden tries to scare voters is to remind voters that he didn’t do whatever nefarious thing is on Biden’s mind when he had the chance when he was in the White House. The latest trope was that Trump will shut down the White House Correspondents Dinner if he is elected in November. Malarkey. Trump didn’t attend them as president. He went to one as a guest pre-2016, though, and credits it with helping him decide to run in 2015.
Voters are looking back at the Trump years fondly. Typically, elections are about looking ahead, not backward, but we live in an upside-down world now. Biden, who promised a return to normal and the grown-ups would be in charge, has failed miserably.
Assessing Biden’s time in office so far, 61% say his presidency thus far has been a failure, while 39% say it’s been a success. That’s narrowly worse than the 57% who called the first year of his administration a failure in January 2022, with 41% calling it a success.
Opinions on their time in office show Republicans united in favorable thoughts of Trump’s term in office – 92% say his term was successful. Only 73% of Democrats say Biden has been a success. The all-important independents say Trump was more successful (51%) versus 37% say so of Biden. These numbers are particularly painful for Biden because he ran as the not-Trump candidate in 2020. He’s doing the same in 2024. It’s backfiring now that there has been a little time since Trump left office and Biden began turning America into a Marxist third-world country. Hence the Trump nostalgia. Voters may not be fond of Trump but they liked his policies and how he handled the economy and the southern border, the two most important issues in the 2024 election cycle.
Don’t forget the importance of judicial picks. Look who Trump put on the Supreme Court, for example, and look who Biden chose.
70% say economic conditions in the US are poor. That is devastating for a sitting president running for re-election. 4 in 10 of that 70% say a change in political leadership would do more to change their impressions of the economy than a lower rate of inflation. That tracks. Biden and his people tell Americans the economy is bouncing along and doing just fine, including interest rates going down, but no one is feeling it in everyday life. Prices are not going down. Once they go up, it’s rare to see them go back down.
Joe Biden has little to run on for re-election. He is running on abortion and saving democracy. Is that enough? Abortion did well for Democrats in the past two election cycles but it has fallen down the list of important issues for voters. Immigration and law and order are at 48%, health care at 43%, abortion is at 42% and Supreme Court nominations are at 39%. Lower down on the list is foreign policy at 33%, climate change at 27%, the Israel-Hamas war at 26%, and student loans are important to 24%. That’s a snapshot of what voters are considering now as they look at the candidates.
Protecting democracy ranks at 67% for Democrat voters, though no one ever defines that except to say it has to do with keeping Trump out of office. Abortion is at 54% for them. The economy is number three at 52%. Then it’s gun policy at 51% and health care at 49%.
For Republicans, the top of the list of important issues is the economy at 79%, immigration at 71%, crime at 65% and democracy at 54%.
Maybe that shows that the Republican Party now is the party of everyday working people. The economy is the most important issue. Democrats are more concerned about some undefined idea of concern for democracy, though we live in a constitutional republic. Abortion is more important to Democrat voters than the economy.
Both candidates are viewed negatively. Biden is viewed unfavorably by 58% and Trump is viewed unfavorably by 55%. 53% of voters are dissatisfied with having to choose from either candidate in this year’s election.
How about voters under 35? Biden trails Trump 51% to 40%. That is astounding to me. Look at all Team Biden is doing to pander to young voters – forgiving student loans despite the Supreme Court ruling against them, using TikTok and its influencers to promote DNC talking points, despite government devices being restricted from using the social media platform out of concern about China gathering data on Americans.
In general, Trump holds a clear advantage over Biden at this point.
Among all voters, Biden remains at a bit of a disadvantage relative to Trump in terms of the share of voters who have ruled out voting for him: 52% say there’s no chance they would support him, while 47% say there’s no chance they would back Trump, both numbers are similar to the level found in a fall CNN survey. A small share of registered voters – 5% for Biden, 3% for Trump – say that although they are not currently backing that candidate they would consider them.
It’s an interesting set of results from a CNN poll. Biden’s in trouble if he can’t turn the momentum around. He can’t change his age or his feeble appearance. He can’t change the deterioration of his mental acuity. Can the economy rebound enough to make a noticeable difference to voters by November? Color me skeptical. We know he won’t secure the southern border by November. Now we wait to see how the court cases play out for Trump and how supportive Trump voters remain for him.