Donald Trump’s Chances of Beating Joe Biden, According to Polls

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President Joe Biden is expected to launch his 2024 re-election campaign on Tuesday, setting the stage for a potential rematch of his showdown four years ago with former President Donald Trump.

And like 2020, early polls show it’s likely to be a close contest.

Biden, now 80 years old, is the oldest person to hold office and already faces doubts about a re-election bid because not only of his age but of his family’s reluctance to accept favored policies. of the left wing of his party.

Although some potential Democratic challengers, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, have largely avoided talk of challenging Biden, a pair of Democratic activists, Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has already announced longshot bids. against him.

Polling shows Donald Trump (L) and Joe Biden (R) as the front-runners for their respective parties’ nominations in the 2024 presidential race. As in 2020, polling shows it will be a close contest. Alex Wroblewski/Drew Angerer/Newsweek Photo Illustration/Getty Images

The 76-year-old Trump, meanwhile, remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party, with a double-digit advantage in the polls over current and prospective candidates like Nikki Haley, Mike Pence and Tim Scott in a fractured field.

He also boasts a growing list of endorsements from top figures in Congress ready to back his re-election bid, helping to consolidate the party’s support even as some major donors have begun defecting to others. candidate.

Also important is the wide gap in the polls between him and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a conservative firebrand seen by some as Trump’s heir apparent as he flirted with his own bid for the presidency.

With the field split, Trump stands to beat DeSantis by double-digits under today’s poll numbers. And if the election were held tomorrow, Trump currently stands to win his party’s nomination by anywhere between 15 and 35 points based on current polling, leaving the rest of the field with significant ground to cover in order to compete.

The question now is whether Trump—who famously lost the popular vote twice in his previous campaigns—can turn the tide against Biden after his 4-point loss in the general election more than two years ago .

Even running against a previously unpopular president, polls now show the prospect of a Trump victory in 2024 is a risky bet for Republicans.

One of the few pollsters to survey likely voters—conservative pollster Rasmussen—has delivered Biden’s best approval ratings to date in some of their recent polls, even though they predicted he would lose. by nearly double the number of Trump or DeSantis in a 2024 matchup.

However, while Biden’s disapproval rating was at 56 percent in a recent Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters published on March 29, Trump’s disapproval rating was actually two points higher, at 58 percent.

Most of that survey also said that upcoming criminal charges against the former president—including those recently filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for alleged hush payments he made to an adult star in film during the 2016 election cycle—should disqualify him. And overall, most voters thought both candidates were more dishonest than honest.

Newsweek has reached Trump’s team by email for comment.

Ultimately, Biden’s unpopularity doesn’t matter against a candidate like Trump, the poll said, polling Biden two points higher than Trump in the general election.

Other polls of registered voters in the past month have projected a similar result, especially in the battlegrounds that either candidate will likely need to win the presidency again in 2024.

NEW POLL

Third poll showing Trump’s indictment bump fading. After a month of great media coverage (for GOP voters), he’s in the high 40s.

Trump has real weaknesses. DeSantis enters the race. Trump’s negatives are higher than Biden’s (-19 vs. -10) https://t.co/dhnuKBJ3MB

— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) April 23, 2023

In Wisconsin, a poll from Republican pollsters Public Opinion Strategies last week showed Biden beating Trump by three points in the Badger State, compared to the intense heat he would likely face in a toss-up race against a hypothetical candidate who Ron DeSantis.

In Michigan, the same pollster also had Biden beating Trump by three points, with DeSantis boasting a slight edge over Biden in the blue-leaning state. Other battleground states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona also showed similar results—a result of what some pundits say is Trump’s nearly 100 percent name recognition that has leaving little room for entry among undecided voters.

That’s not to say it’s all negative for Trump—especially given the fact that most pollsters have the two candidates separated by fewer than four points in most surveys.

For example, in an April 5 YouGov/Economist poll, Trump and DeSantis trailed Biden by two and eight points respectively, with Biden’s handling of the economy driving much of the dissatisfaction. (59 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Biden’s performance in addressing inflation, according to the crosstabs.)

Meanwhile, a Harvard/Harris poll published Friday shows Trump leading Biden by five points in a potential general election contest as the percentage of those who believe the country and the economy are on the “right track” is approaching previous high water marks seen during the Biden era last summer.

The most important statistic for both men, however, may be the fact that no one in the country really likes either of them. In most polls, most of those surveyed do not want either of them to run again.

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