Polling: Biden’s Lead Over Trump Expands

A new survey shows President Biden’s lead over President Trump expanding heading into the 2024 election, with Mr. Trump maintaining his substantial lead in the Republican primary.The poll, conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, found that Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump 44 percent to 38 percent in a hypothetical matchup.Although other polls, like a recent Premise poll, have shown Mr. Trump leading, the steady increase in Mr. Biden’s lead in a poll conducted by the same pollster with the same methodology every month suggests he is gaining ground.The same poll conducted in March found that Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by five points. In a February poll, Mr. Biden trailed Mr. Trump by three points.As the 2024 presidential campaign comes into focus, and both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump appear likely to secure their party’s nominations, the 2024 presidential election is coming into focus and it looks a lot like the 2020 election.Playing into this likelihood is Mr. Trump’s continued domination of the polls on the Republican side. The Reuters Ipsos survey found that Mr. Trump enjoys more than twice as much support as Governor DeSantis heading into the summer.In the survey, 49 percent of registered Republicans preferred Mr. Trump as their candidate of choice compared to only 21 percent who supported Mr. DeSantis. Vice President Pence was a distant third at five percent support.Both Mr. Biden’s lead in the general election polling as well as Mr. Trump’s lead in the primary polling were outside the margin of error for the poll, which was two points. The poll surveyed 4,410 American adults.As the Sun has reported, polling at this stage of the election cycle is not necessarily predictive of final results in the primary or general election. However, in the late summer and early fall, polls will begin to be more predictive of the final results.Buoying Mr. Biden’s numbers are two major issues — abortion and the border. On abortion Americans broadly trust Democrats more to handle the issue. On the border, Mr. Biden is helped by the so-far subdued migration surge following the expiration of Title 42.On abortion, 63 percent of voters overall and 73 percent of independents reported being less likely to vote for a candidate who backs severe restrictions on abortion.Democrats are generally favored on abortion and Republicans are more associated with severe abortion restrictions. However, even Mr. Trump has taken time to spell out his support for exceptions to abortion ban, like at a recent CNN town hall.He’s also expressly said that a six-week abortion ban, such as the one recently enacted in Florida, may be too harsh, in a recent interview with The Messenger.“He has to do what he has to do,” Mr. Trump told The Messenger. “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”Although it’s not clear exactly what group of people Mr. Trump is referring to as the “pro-life movement,” a recent Fox News poll, 62 percent of Republicans are in favor of a six week ban compared to 33 percent who are opposed, suggesting that a six week ban is popular among Republican primary voters even if it is unpopular among the general electorate.On the border, majorities of both Democrats and Republicans said they were worried about a potential surge in border crossing, with 64 percent of Democrats and 93 percent of Republicans reporting that they favor a candidate who supports tougher border measures.Mr. Biden has moved to the right on his border policy in recent months, sending 1,500 troops to the southern border and promising that any migrant who does not apply for asylum before their arrival will be deported.With the ending of the pandemic era Title 42, which allowed for the mass deportation of migrants, there was concern that border crossing could surge from both administration officials and the press.According a chief operating officer for the border patrol, Blas Nuñez-Neto, there has been a 56 percent decline in the number of border encounters since Title 42 expired. Officials said the number of people encountered by agents at the border has decreased to an average of 4,400 a day from a record-shattering 10,000 a day last week. Most are being released with orders to appear in immigration court years from now.“Since May 12, the U.S. Border Patrol has experienced a steady decrease in daily encounters,” Mr. Nuñez-Neto told reporters Wednesday. “I want to stress once again that it is still too soon to draw any firm conclusions here about where these trends will go in the coming days and weeks.”When on a bike ride near his vacation home at Rehoboth Beach, Mr. Biden remarked that the end of Title 42 had resulted in a situation at the border that was “much better than you all expected.”

Polling: Biden’s Lead Over Trump Expands

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