2024-03-04 09:51:22
Days before the biggest night of the presidential election season, a new poll will raise concerns for Joe Biden, who is trailing his likely White House challenger, Donald Trump.
The survey of registered voters nationwide, conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, found that if the election were held today, 48 percent would choose Trump and 43 percent would choose Biden. The poll comes just before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen US states hold presidential nominating contests in an exercise expected to definitively end the challenge of Trump’s remaining Republican challenger, Nikki Haley.
The survey shows that President Biden is struggling, despite many positive economic indicators, to convince ordinary Americans that his policies are working for them.
Only one in four said the country is moving in the right direction, and more than twice as many voters said Biden’s policies have hurt them more than helped them.
Importantly, the survey found a weakening of support for Biden among some normally reliable Democratic voters, including voters of other nationalities.
And while Trump has united his base to a remarkable degree – 97% of those who voted for him in 2020 said they would do so again – only 83% of Biden’s 2020 voters have pledged to stay with him, while 10% now support Trump.
The Times/Siena poll also noted a dramatic drop in support for Biden among less-educated, working-class voters of color.
Four years ago, Biden was winning in this demographic by 50%, but the poll shows that the gap with Trump has since narrowed to just 6%.
The survey pointed to a fundamental shift in the way voters who supported Mr. Biden four years ago see him now. For 61%, he is “simply too old” to be an effective president. A sizable share was even more worried: 19 percent of those who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 and 13 percent of those who said they would support him in November said the 81-year-old president’s age was an issue that prevents him from doing his job. Concerns about Mr. Biden’s age cut across generations, gender, race and education, highlighting the president’s failure to allay concerns within his own party. 73 percent of all registered voters said he was too old to be effective, and 45 percent said they believed he couldn’t get the job done.
Otto Abad, 50, an independent voter in Scott, La., said he voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but plans to switch his support to Mr. Trump if they run again. Now he worries that Mr. Biden is not ready for a second term. “If he was in that mental shape then I didn’t realize,” Mr Abad said. “He’s aged a lot. With the exception of Trump, every president seems to age a lot during their presidency. He added: “Trump, one of the few things I would say good about him is that nothing seems to bother him. He seems to be in the same mental shape he was in 10 years ago, 12 years ago, 15 years ago. He is like a cockroach.
Sherman Elmore, 44, a small business owner in Baltimore, voted for Mr. Biden four years ago. But she said she made more money under Mr. Trump, blaming inflation and gas prices for her losses during the Biden administration. She plans to vote for Mr. Trump this fall.
The survey among 980 registered voters has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 points, writes BGNES.