President Joe Biden faces an enthusiasm problem, with former President Donald Trump leading nationally in both deep candidate pools and binary choice situations, according to an Emerson College poll.
The poll, released Friday, found that 44% of 1,100 registered voters support Trump in a race against Biden and a third-party candidate. Trump leads Biden by five points with 39%, while independent Robert F. Kennedy is at 6%. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West are tied at 1%. Ten percent of respondents are undecided.
Trump’s lead is outside the margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
With only Trump and Biden in the race, the gap between them is narrowing: Trump receives 46% of the votes, Biden 44%. In this scenario, 10% of respondents are undecided.
National opinion poll
2024 Presidential Election
Trump 46%
Biden 44%
10% UndecidedFor a pending push:
50% Trump
50% Bidenhttps://t.co/ToJRHwVlKv pic.twitter.com/T1a5qTtPRy— Emerson College Poll (@EmersonPolling) May 24, 2024
When undecided voters are forced to choose which candidate they support, Biden 59 percent to 41 percent. Biden and Trump were tied at 50 percent, making the overall race, which includes supporters in the full sample, very close.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of the Emerson College Poll. Said The announcement said Biden was winning over voters under the age of 30, while Trump was winning over voters in their 30s.
“Voters under 30 are trailing Biden by 15 points, with a quarter undecided. When these undecideds are cornered, this group leads Biden by 26 points, 63% to 37%, mirroring the difference in Biden’s vote share among this group in 2020,” Kimball said.
“That said, Biden still trails Trump among voters in their 30s, 41% to 45%, a demographic in which Biden led Trump in 2020,” he added. “The poll also shows that Trump’s support has grown among voters in their 50s since 2020, where he now leads Biden by 19 points, 57% to 38%.”
The poll also found that Biden faces a serious drop in support among Democrats: 80% of Republican primary voters say Republicans should nominate Trump, while only 68% of Democrats say Biden should be the nominee. Both men have held the “title” of presumptive candidate for months.
About a quarter of Democrats (24%) said they preferred a candidate other than Biden, while 8% said they were unsure. Just 14% of Republicans said they preferred a candidate other than Trump.
An overwhelming majority of voters identified the economy as the biggest problem facing the nation, with 38% of respondents choosing it, while immigration and threats to democracy came in second and third most highly cited at 17% and 13%, respectively.
