One poll focusing on the Democratic primary found that support for both former US President Donald Trump and current US President Joe Biden in a hypothetical presidential election being held tomorrow was exactly the same, with each candidate capturing 43% of respondents’ votes.
It also found that opposition to Biden being the nominee among Democrats declined dramatically over the last year. Last summer, a NYT/Siena poll found 64% of Democrats did not want Biden to be the nominee in 2024, including 94% of Democrats under the age of 30. That has now declined to just half of Democrats.
Still, 30% of would-be Biden voters said they hoped the party would nominate someone else, and 51% said they would be satisfied but not enthusiastic about a Biden nomination. Just 20% said they would be enthusiastic about it.
On top of that, Biden has an approval rating for his present administration of just 39%.
Still, Biden’s lead over other Democratic rivals is powerful: 64% of Democrats intend to vote for him in the party’s primary, while just 13% supported Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and 10% supported Marianne Williamson.
The NYT/Siena Poll on the GOP primary field, likewise, showed Trump dominating the pack. Released a day prior, it showed 54% of GOP voters supporting the former president, while just 17% support Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Several of the remaining candidates - former US Vice President Mike Pence, US Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley - each polled at 3%. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy polled at 2%, and the rest were less than that.
Biden and Trump previously faced each other in the November 2020 election, which Biden won by about 8 million votes and 74 Electoral College votes. However, many of the individual state races were extremely close, and Trump claimed to have lost several of them due to massive voter fraud, launching a campaign to challenge the election results that culminated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
That effort by Trump’s supporters to block the certification of the election results failed and Trump was impeached on charges of inciting the attack, although he was acquitted in a Senate trial that occurred several weeks after Biden was sworn in as president.