Former president Trump in the 2024 race has a nearly ten-point advantage over President Biden, whom most Democrats want to replace as their party’s nominee, according to a new major poll released Sunday.
In a 2024 matchup, 51 percent of respondents said they would vote for Trump while 42 percent said they would vote for Biden, a new Washington Post/ABC News survey indicates. On the question of probability to vote for either candidate, 36 percent of respondents said they would definitely vote for the former president while 32 percent said they would vote for the current.
Trump led Biden by 20 points among voters under age 35.
The poll, conducted by telephone September 15-20, 2023 among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, shows 37 percent approval for Biden and 48 percent approval for Trump’s past presidential performance, the highest level recorded for him in the poll since March 2020.
On the economy and immigration, Biden received overwhelming disapproval of 64 percent and 62 percent, respectively. Across issues including the state of the economy, the unemployment rate, gas or energy prices, and the incomes of average Americans, most respondents said the times are not good.
Asking respondents who identified as Democratic-leaning whether they would like to see Biden nominated for another term, the poll found that 62 percent wants the party to nominate someone else besides Biden. Republican-leaning respondents said they would support Trump rather than his opponent Ron DeSantis for the GOP nomination by 54 percent to the governor’s 15 percent.
Among voters under age 35, Trump leads Biden in the new Post-ABC poll by 20 points. Some other recent public polls show Biden winning this group by between six and 18 points. In 2020, Biden won voters under age 35 by double digits. Among non-White voters, the poll finds Biden leads by nine points. In four other public polls, Biden’s lead among non-White voters ranges from 12 points to 24 points.
A recent national Wall Street Journal poll from earlier in September showed Trump beating DeSantis 59–13, with the former president’s mounting list of indictments and legal troubles not proving to be deterrents. Over 60 percent of Republican primary voters in the poll said each indictment was politically motivated and without merit. About 78 percent said Trump’s actions to interfere with the certification of the 2020 election for Biden were legitimate efforts to ensure an accurate vote. The WSJ poll also projected a Trump-Biden tie of 46–46 in November 2024.
The results of Sunday’s Washington Post/ABC News poll showed a less forgiving attitude to Trump’s indictments on federal and state charges that he conspired to illegal overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and that he illegally retained classified documents after leaving office. Among respondents, 53 percent said Trump was appropriately held accountable, while 40 percent said he was unfairly victimized by his political opponents.