President Joe Biden appears to be trailing his likeliest Republican rival for the 2024 presidential election, Donald J. Trump, in six key States Biden had won in 2020. According to a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College, the majority of the interviewed people have doubts about his age, his mental acuity and his handling of the economy.
If the election were to be held today Joe Biden would lose by a margin of three to ten percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. He is ahead in Wisconsin, but only by two percentage points.
Major problems for Biden are his age (he is “too old” for 71% of voters), the feeling most voters have that his economic policies have personally affected them, and the fragmentation of the multigenerational, multiracial electorate that voted for him in 2020. Voters under 30 now appear to support him by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and while women still favor him, men prefer Donald Trump by twice as large a margin. Among black voters, an unprecedented 22% in the six states now appears to support Donald Trump.
Voters also prefer Trump on immigration by 12 points, on national security by 12 points and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by 11 points. The gender gap on national security is enormous, men preferring Donald Trump 62 percent to 33 percent, while women prefer Joe Biden 47 to 46 percent.
The New York Times observes that both candidates appear to be deeply unpopular, but voters take it out on the incumbent president. However, there is one year until the election and the economic indicators are improving, which may play in Joe Biden’s favor. Also, in October 2022 in the run-up to the midterm elections, the president’s approval rating was nearly the same as it is now, but the Democratic Party managed to lose fewer seats than expected in the House and gained one seat in the Senate.
However, as of now, according to the poll , Donald Trump would win five of these six States and would obtain more than 300 electoral votes, while 270 electoral votes are needed to win the White House.
The New York Times/Siena College polls of 3,662 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were conducted by telephone using live operators from Oct. 22 to Nov. 3, 2023.
