A new national poll suggests that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters are becoming more supportive of the idea of President Biden as their party’s nominee in 2024.
Half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents questioned in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Wednesday said their party has a better chance of winning the White House in 2024 with Biden as the nominee. Forty-five percent said another candidate would improve their chances of winning.
That marks a major shift in public opinion in the Marist poll, as the president was underwater on that question in November.
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President Biden speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
“This change in perception comes as Biden’s approval rating among Americans, overall, has inched up after his State of the Union Address last week,” Marist noted in a news release.
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The 80-year-old Biden has said he intends to seek a second term in the White House but has yet to launch a presidential re-election campaign.
Former President Trump speaks at a campaign event at the South Carolina Statehouse, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, in Columbia, South Carolina. (AP)
Meanwhile, a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents questioned in the nationwide survey said the GOP has a better chance of winning back the White House in 2024 with someone other than former President Trump as the party’s standard-bearer.
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Fifty-four percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the GOP has a better chance of winning in 2024 without Trump, identical to last November. Just 42% said Trump would give Republicans an advantage in the 2024 general election.
File photos of former President Trump, left, and President Biden (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images | Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The poll also indicates that Trump’s favorability rating among those who identify or lean towards the Republican Party dropped from 79% in November to 68% in February — his lowest level in Marist polling since before he won the 2016 presidential election.
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The first three months of Trump’s latest White House bid have raised questions about his political durability, with pundits from both the left and the right criticizing his mid-November campaign launch as well as controversial actions and comments he has made since declaring his candidacy. In the wake of a lackluster performance by the GOP in the midterm elections — where the party underperformed in what many expected to be a red wave election — Trump has also been blamed for elevating polarizing Republican nominees who ended up losing in the general election.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll was conducted Feb. 13-16.
