Bad news for Biden in new Yahoo News/YouGov poll

In last month’s Yahoo News/YouGov pollPresident Biden led former President Donald Trump by a solid margin (47% to 41%) in a hypothetical 2024 Election Day showdown between the Democratic and Republican frontrunners.

Before that, Biden had led Trump in every Yahoo News/YouGov poll since February, and in 10 of 11 Yahoo News/YouGov polls conducted this year.

But in the last few weeks of the summer, Biden’s steady lead has evaporated amid growing concerns about his age and fitness for another term, as well as a long-term impeachment push by Republicans in the Chamber

Meanwhile, Trump appears to be gaining momentum despite the 91 criminal charges filed against him since early 2023.

Trump and Biden are suddenly tied

In accordance with the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll of 1,636 American adults, who were in the field from September 14 to 18, Biden and Trump would now be tied at 44% each among registered voters if the 2024 election were held today. Another 7% remain undecided, while 4% say they would not vote.

A lot can (and will) change between now and November 2024. That said, the polls are snapshots of current public opinion and the fact that the incumbent president has suddenly lost his lead over a challenger to defeat by 4.5 percentage points in 2020, and now facing four separate criminal trials, is one of several warning signs for Biden in the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll:

• Approval Rating: After more than a year of job approval at 40% or slightly higher, Biden’s rating has dropped to 38% approval, 56% disapproval. This is a significant drop from the percentages that peaked at 43% and 44% in April and May, and the worst result for the president since his previous low of 35% approve, 56% disapprove in August 2022.

• The economy: despite data improvement — the labor market is roaring; GDP is growing; general inflation tends to fall; a much predicted recession has not materialized, just 34% of Americans approve of how Biden is handling the economy. Less than a quarter (23%) describe the current state of the US economy as excellent or good (down one point from 24% in July), while 75% describe it as fair or poor (compared to 71%). And only 16% say the economy is improving (up from 18%), while 56% say it is getting worse (compared to 54%).

• “Suitability” for the presidency: A greater number of Americans are now considering it Trump “fit to serve another term as president” (39%) than say the same about Biden (27%). Trump’s fitness number is up 5 points (from 34%) since August.

• Age: When it comes to fitness for office, more Americans see Biden’s age — he’s 80 now and would be 86 at the end of a second term — as a problem. (52% say it’s a big problem and 77% a small or big problem) than see Trump’s criminal charges as a problem (47% big problem, 64% little or big problem).

• ‘Corruption’: Finally, as a result of the indictment of Biden’s son Hunter on a gun charge – and the House Republicans decision to open an impeachment inquiry against the president — The gap between Trump and Biden on the issue of corruption seems to be narrowing. Nearly half of Americans (47%) now think Biden and his family are corrupt, up from 45% in August and 42% in October 2022. When asked last month which family was “more corrupt,” 46% said the Trumps and 36% said the Bidens. Those numbers now they are closer: 41% and 38%, respectively.

Understand why the numbers have changed

To be fair, Biden is still doing well with his own party. His current approval rating of 79% among Democrats is at the lower end of a range of 79% to 81% reported in recent polls, though slightly better than his rank among Democrats (from 75 % to 79%) in the first quarter of 2023. 53% of potential Democratic primary voters, meaning registered voters who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, prefer the president to ” someone else” (35%) as a candidate. (Last month, 50% preferred Biden.) And nearly all Democrats continue to support Biden (90%) over Trump (3%).

Instead, the biggest changes, for both Biden and Trump, have come among Republicans. Here, Biden’s approval rating has soared in recent months, dropping from 18% in April to 16% in May, 11% in June, 8% in July, 7% in August and only 4% in the current survey. At the same time, Trump’s support in the 2024 general election among Republican voters (91%) is at an all-time high, up from 84% last month.

These numbers suggest that the growing sense of Trump as the inevitable GOP nominee in 2024 may be causing previously wary Republicans to put aside their concerns and rally around him.

In fact, Trump has never looked stronger among potential Republican primary voters. Better than Six in 10 (61%) now prefer Trump to “someone else” (29%) for the nomination, up seven points from August (54%) and 11 points from its previous average of 2023 (50%). When faced with nine other declared Republican candidates, Trump now wins 59% of the primary vote, a 13-point increase from his 2023 average (46%).

Head-to-head against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (22%), Trump is doing even better, with 65% of the vote. In the meantime, DeSantis only wins 13% against the full GOP primary field: 46 points behind Trump. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley receive just 5% each.

One way Trump could still stumble

When it comes to the broader electorate, Trump is hardly out of the woods. Most Americans believe the former president should be found guilty of at least some criminal charges (54%); even more say he should not be allowed to serve another sentence if convicted of a serious crime (58%).

However, while independents, who tend to swing elections one way or another, tend to agree with these views (49% say the former and 54% say the latter), they also prefer Trump (45%) to Biden (36%). hypothetical 2024 vote.

That’s a 9-point lead for Trump among independents. Last month, Trump led Biden by five (42% to 37%).

____________

The Yahoo News poll was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,636 US adults interviewed online from September 14-18, 2023. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race , education, participation in the 2020 election and the presidential vote, reference. party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. The basic party identification is the respondent’s most recent response before March 15, 2022 and is weighted by the estimated distribution at that time (32 % Democrat, 27% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s acceptance panel to be representative of all US adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.7%.