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President Joe Biden and former White House occupant Donald Trump will attend competing rallies on Saturday as a new poll shows the Democrat struggling in a hypothetical 2024 race with the Republican.
Biden will join former President Barack Obama in Philadelphia as they support U.S. Senate candidate Lt. Governor John Fetterman and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro.
Trump will be in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, at a rally in support of Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano as the midterm elections near.
Fetterman and Oz are locked in a close race for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat, and the contest could ultimately decide which party controls the Senate for the next two years.
Former President Trump has thrown his weight behind Oz and Mastriano as he continues to hint that he could announce another campaign for the White House in 2024. It could set up a potential rematch with Biden, who has also indicated his intention to run.
A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll conducted on November 2 found that Trump has an advantage in a potential 2024 matchup, with the Republican enjoying 44 percent support among 1,084 likely voters, compared to 39 percent who said they would vote for Biden.
A further 10 percent said they didn't know who they would vote for under those circumstances.
The same poll found Biden's approval rating stood at just 39 percent, while 46 percent of Americans disapproved of him.
Philip van Scheltinga, Director of Research at Redfield & Wilton Strategies told Newsweek on Saturday: "In the two years since the presidential election, American politics have been a bit sleepy—at least compared to that in the United Kingdom.
"But our latest polling shows how much that will change following next week's midterm elections," van Scheltinga said. "Donald Trump did not win the popular vote in 2016 or 2020. Yet, our latest poll finds him leading Joe Biden nationally by 5 percent, an astonishing shift.
"Should the Republicans perform well on Tuesday night, as the polling tentatively suggests, there will be immense pressure for Donald Trump to announce his 2024 bid for the presidency," he said.
"That will put Joe Biden and the Democrats in a difficult position," van Scheltinga added.
"Will Biden confirm that he is running for re-election, upsetting some of his own supporters who do not think he should run again, or does he risk becoming, in effect, a lame-duck president for the next two years?" he said.
Other polling paints a mixed picture of a potential 2024 presidential contest between Biden and Trump, with a YouGov poll conducted from October 27 to 31 among 1,172 registered voters finding the president leading Trump, with 48 percent support to the Republican's 42 percent.
Trump told supporters at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday night that they should "get ready" for another presidential run, and he falsely claimed to have won the 2020 election.
"I won twice, and did much better the second time than I did the first," the former president said. "And now, in order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again, OK?"
Axios reported on Friday that Trump may be preparing to announce a third White House bid as early as November 14, just a week after midterm elections where Republicans are expected to perform well.
The Pennsylvania Senate race is very close, according to analysis by poll tracker FiveThirtyEight, which gives Fetterman a 53 percent chance of victory, compared to 47 percent for Oz.
It's a different picture in the governor's race, however, where FiveThirtyEight rates Shapiro as clearly favored to defeat the Trump-endorsed Mastriano. That analysis gives the Democrat a 97 percent chance of victory, compared to just 3 percent for the Republican.
Newsweek has asked the White House and Trump's office for comment.
Correction 11/05/22 10.33a.m. E.T.: This article was corrected to state that the statement from Redfield & Wilton Strategies was provided by Philip van Scheltinga.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more