Despite a growing economy and little opposition for his party’s nomination, President Joe Biden confronts a dissatisfied electorate and a challenging political climate nine months before he faces re-election, according to a new national NBC News poll.
Biden trails GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on major policy and personal comparisons, including by more than 20 points on which candidate would better handle the economy. And Biden’s deficit versus Trump on handling immigration and the border is greater than 30 points.
The poll also shows Trump holding a 16-point advantage over Biden on being competent and effective, a reversal from 2020, when Biden was ahead of Trump on this quality by 9 points before defeating him in that election.
And Biden’s approval rating has declined to the lowest level of his presidency in NBC News polling — to 37% — while fewer than 3 in 10 voters approve of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
All together, these numbers explain why the poll shows Trump leading Biden by 5 points among registered voters in a hypothetical 2024 general-election matchup, 47% to 42%. While the result is within the poll’s margin of error, the last year of polling shows a clear shift.
Perhaps the best news in the poll for Biden is that he pulls ahead of Trump when voters are asked about their ballot choice if the former president is convicted of a felony. Yet the margin then is just 2 points in Biden’s favor, also within the margin of error.
Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff and his team at Public Opinion Strategies, says these findings reveal “a presidency in peril.”
“What is most concerning is the erosion of Biden’s standing against Trump compared to four years ago,” Horwitt said. “On every measure compared to 2020, Biden has declined. Most damning, the belief that Biden is more likely to be up to the job — the chief tenet of the Biden candidacy — has evaporated.”
McInturff, the GOP pollster, adds: “It is hard to imagine a more difficult set of numbers before a re-election.”
But Horwitt said that Biden still has time to change voters’ perceptions.
“Biden can take solace that we are in January and not October 2024. At this stage in prior cycles, attitudes can change,” he said.
The NBC News poll, conducted Jan. 26-30, comes after Trump won his party’s presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, as the Israel-Hamas war enters its fourth month, and amid positive news on the U.S. economy, including growing consumer confidence and more than 300,000 jobs created last month.
(The poll, however, was conducted before the U.S. military launched strikes Friday in retaliation for the killings of three U.S. service members in Jordan.)
“Inflation is coming down. Jobs are growing. We created 800,000 manufacturing jobs,” Biden boasted in Michigan on Thursday.
Despite those statistics, Trump holds a 22-point advantage over Biden on the question of which candidate would do a better job handling the economy, with 55% picking Trump and 33% choosing Biden.
When this question was last asked in October 2020 — a month before Biden’s victory over Trump — the then-president held only a 7-point advantage over Biden, 48% to 41%.
That said, the poll shows improving attitudes about the economy, with the share of voters believing the economy will get worse in the next year declining 14 points since October 2022.
Also in the poll, Trump has the edge on securing the border and controlling immigration (35 points over Biden), on having the necessary mental and physical health to be president (+23), on dealing with crime and violence (+21), on being competent and effective (+16), and on improving America’s standing in the world (+11).
Biden holds advantages over Trump on dealing with abortion (+12) and protecting immigrant rights (+17).
The two men are essentially…
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