By all accounts, it seems like a Trump-Biden rematch is 2024’s likeliest scenario. But if the GOP went with an alternative to their former standard-bearer, that could possibly be the key to retake the White House.
A new poll from CNN has bad news for President Joe Biden, who gets just a 39% approval rating a little more than a year before Election Day.
But even worse than that, the poll says Biden remains tied or slightly behind most other non-Trump candidates in hypothetical races. And one of them, Nikki Haley, has a six-point lead over him. All signs point to her being the “best” candidate to run in the general election.
The former UN Ambassador and South Carolina governor has raised her stock following a solid debate performance, which featured light Trump criticism, strong views on foreign policy, and a moderate position on abortion. The news is certainly welcome for her camp (since Trump and Biden are pretty tied) even as she wallows behind Trump in the polls by more than 40 percentage points.
Though a Biden-Haley election is highly unlikely, Biden is going into 2024 as a candidate with low approval and an outsized segment of his own voters (six in ten, according to CNN) who think he’s too old to run. While it may be true most Americans don’t have a favorable view of his most likely opponent, the race will be close so long as it remains a redo of 2020, Haley’s electability notwithstanding.
