A new poll finds that for more than half of Joe Biden’s supporters, preventing President Donald Trump from returning to the White House is their primary motivation for voting for him.
Fifty-four percent of Democratic incumbent voters say opposition to Trump is the main reason they support Biden. A new CBS/YouGov poll findsThat’s up from 47% in a similar survey conducted in March, before the Republican front-runner was convicted of business fraud by a New York jury.
Additionally, 27% of Biden supporters are supporting him because they like the president, down from 31% in March, while 19% say they are supporting him because he is the Democratic presidential nominee.
The poll comes as Biden’s campaign has stepped up rhetoric in recent weeks to directly attack Trump, pointing to the former president’s felony convictions and a string of past controversies. Biden last week argued that his predecessor, who complained that his New York trial was rigged, was “reckless and dangerous” and had “gone mad” after losing the 2020 election.
With the outcome of this year’s presidential election still uncertain, a new CBS poll shows Biden and Trump are roughly tied nationally and in key battleground states, with Trump receiving the support of 50% of voters and Biden at 49%, though the numbers are reversed among voters in battleground states.
Trump has led Biden in most polls in recent months, but there is evidence that the president’s support is shifting slightly in the wake of his predecessor’s felony conviction. Trump, who faces three additional felony charges of concealing classified documents and plotting to interfere with the 2020 election, is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced on July 11 in his New York trial.
But a CBS poll found that 55% of voters said Trump’s conviction was not a factor in their choice of president, while 28% said it was a major factor. Trump saw a surge in fundraising from his supporters after his trial, but the poll found that only 14% of voters supported him because of his conviction, and the majority said the conviction was not a factor for them.
The poll found that 8 in 10 Trump supporters incorrectly believe the former president was indicted because of actions of the Biden administration, not local prosecutors.
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Polls show that overall, the main motivating issues for voters are the state of the U.S. economy, inflation, the health of democracy and crime.
