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In another worrying sign for President Joe Biden's reelection prospects, new polling published on Saturday shows him losing a double-digit percentage of his 2020 supporters to former President Donald Trump.
Although the primaries and caucuses continue into June, Trump and Biden are widely expected to ultimately become their respective party's 2024 presidential nominees, as they were in 2020. Meanwhile, both politicians remain unpopular overall, with some polls showing that majorities of Americans don't want either to run.
Biden, 81, has increasingly faced concerns about his age and mental competence, while many voters give him poor marks on his handling of the economy and the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump, 77, has also faced questions about his age and fitness for office, particularly as he faces 91 criminal charges amid an onslaught of legal troubles. The former president, however, maintains his innocence.
Most surveys over the last several months have shown 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 on Saturday spells further trouble for Biden, showing that 10 percent of voters who backed him in 2020 now plan to support Trump in November. Meanwhile, less than 0.5 percent of Trump's 2020 backers plan to back Biden.
The polling showed that Trump maintains the support of 97 percent of his 2020 supporters, whereas Biden only has the backing of 83 percent of his former voters. Overall, the data shows Trump beating Biden by 5 points, with 48 percent for the Republican former president compared 43 percent for the Democratic incumbent.
"Polling continues to be at odds with how Americans vote, and consistently overestimates Donald Trump while underestimating President Biden. Whether it's in special elections or in the presidential primaries, actual voter behavior tells us a lot more than any poll does and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and Democrats continue to outperform while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped, and deeply divided," Michael Tyler, Biden-Harris 2024 communications director, said in a statement emailed to Newsweek.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.
Conducted from February 25 to 28, the survey included 823 respondents with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent. Notably, news and polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight ranks the Times/Siena as the No. 1 pollster in the country.
The current RealClearPolitics average of national polls, which includes the Times/Siena data, shows Biden trailing Trump by about 2.3 percent. The Democrat has an average of 45 percent support compared to his Republican rival's 47.3 percent.
Meanwhile, polling in swing states from earlier this year largely shows Trump ahead of Biden as well. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey conducted from January 16 to 22 found that Biden is between three and 10 points behind Trump in Arizona (47-43 percent), Georgia (49-41), Michigan (47-42), Nevada (48-40), North Carolina (49-39), Pennsylvania (48-45) and Wisconsin (49-44). That poll surveyed 4,956 registered voters across the seven states.
Biden's supporters say that, despite the data, voters will ultimately decide to back him over Trump's and Republicans' "extreme" agenda. They point to Democrats' successes in the 2022 and 2023 elections, particularly as they campaigned on abortion access and raised alarms about the MAGA agenda.
"Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win—just like we did in 2020," Tyler said.
Republicans say that voters will ultimately reject Biden, despite Trump's legal issues, viewing the current president as weak on the economy and foreign policy. They also say Biden's made the country less safe through his border policies, and that the charges against Trump are politically motivated.
Update 3/2/2024 at 11:11 a.m. ET: FiveThirtyEight's ranking of the Times/Siena polling was added.
Update 3/2/2024 at 12:23 p.m. ET: A statement from a Biden spokesperson was added.
About the writer
Jason Lemon is a Senior Politics Editor at Newsweek based in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to taking on the editor role, Jason's reporting focused ... Read more