Joe Biden trails Donald Trump in new national poll on 2024 election
Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden by six percentage points in a new national poll from CNN, with nearly half of voters saying they're planning to place their support behind Trump this fall.
Forty-nine percent of those polled say they are expecting to vote for Trump in the 2024 election, compared to Biden's 43%, according to the survey, released Sunday. Trump’s support remains basically unmoved from CNN’s last poll in January, while Biden’s has dropped two percentage points, down from 45%.Biden does not fare much better in a five-way matchup between himself; Trump; Independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornell West; and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
In that scenario, Biden garnered just 33% of the vote, while Trump held 42%. Kennedy polled at 16%, siphoning 13% of the vote away from Trump and Biden. Meanwhile, West polled at 4% and Stein at 3%.
Even as Trump faces four sets of unprecedented criminal charges, his favor among some Americans has continued to rise: 55% of voters say they now view Trump's first term as a success. In contrast, 44% see it as a failure.
Americans' tendency to look back at past presidencies with rose-colored glasses is common. Still, the overall opinion of Trump's presidency has markedly increased since he left office. A January 2021 poll, taken days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, showed that 55% of voters considered his presidency a failure.
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The polling for Biden, now well into his first term as president, does not benefit from the same retrospection. Among those polled, 61% call his presidency a failure, and 39% said it's been a success, according to the poll released Sunday.
The chunk of Americans calling Biden’s presidency a failure has risen by four percentage points since January 2022.
That number appears to reflect voters’ feelings on several issues, including negative impressions on his handling of the economy, inflation and student loan debt. His lowest rating stems from the Israel-Hamas war, with 71% disapproving of his handling of the conflict.
The CNN poll was conducted in mid-April, using a random national sample of 1,212 adults, including 967 registered voters. The poll's results among registered voters had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 points.
With over six months before the general election, it remains to be seen how the polls could shift in time. When asked in 2022 about his waning support in public opinion polling, Biden responded, “I don’t believe the polls.”
