Trump holds lead over Biden in new national poll — but the race is closer than you think

Former President Donald Trump has a slight lead over his likely 2024 opponent, President Biden, in both head-to-head matchups and on a hypothetical five-candidate ballot — though the race remains very close, according to a new national poll of registered voters.

The Marquette Law School national survey released Thursday shows 51% of voters put Trump as their first choice on the ballot and 49% put Biden as their pick when asked to choose between the two presidential candidates.

When given the option of choosing “someone else” or saying they would not vote, Trump still leads Biden in the popular vote, 45% to 42%, the poll found.

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The Republican presidential frontrunner also has a four-point advantage on Biden with likely voters, 52% to 48% — and an 11-point lead among independent voters, 54% to 43%.

Trump, 77, would also win a hypothetical five-way race against Biden, 81, and independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West as well as Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

In that hypothetical, 42% of registered voters would support Trump, 39% would vote for Biden, 15% would prefer Kennedy Jr., 3% would elect West and 2% would cast their ballot for Stein.

Of those candidates, only RFK Jr. has a net positive favorability rating, with 40% of voters having a good opinion of him and 32% having a negative view.

Meanwhile, 60% of voters have an unfavorable view of Biden while 40% have a favorable view — and the president’s job approval sits at 38%, whereas 62% disapprove of his performance.

The incumbent has been saddled with a double-digit net negative favorability rating since January 2023, according to past Marquette polls.

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In surveys conducted since November 2021, Trump’s net favorability rating has improved negative-34 percentage points to negative-9 in the latest survey.

Overall, 45% of voters have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 54% have an unfavorable opinion of him.

Vice President Kamala Harris had an even lower rating than both top White House contenders, with 37% of voters having a favorable opinion of her, and 54% having an unfavorable opinion.

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Just 34% had a positive impression of Trump’s only major GOP challenger and former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who is facing him in the South Carolina primary on Saturday despite having lost the first three early-voting contests.

Both the Republican and Democratic primary contests are all but clinched by Trump and Biden, the poll also shows, with 73% of registered GOP voters and GOP-leaning independents supporting the former president and 66% of Democratic and Democrat-leaning independents backing Biden.

On the critical issues, voters were more likely to prefer Trump to Biden, with a majority saying he was the better choice to handle immigration and border security (53% for Trump to 25% for Biden) and the economy (52% for Trump to 32% for Biden).

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Voters’ perceptions of the economy have been steadily improving since September 2023, with 35% currently rating it either “excellent” or “good” and 65% rating it “not so good” or “poor.”

Asked whether “the Biden administration’s border policies have created a crisis of uncontrolled illegal migration into the country,” 46% of voters strongly agreed and 20% somewhat agreed.

Another 39% were strongly in favor of “deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home countries” and 29% somewhat agreed with that approach.

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Registered voters also rated Trump higher than Biden in terms of being able to handle the Israel-Hamas war (43% to 28%) and foreign relations generally (44% to 37%).

However, respondents say the Democratic incumbent would handle other issues better than his Republican opponent, including health care and abortion (42% to 34%) as well as Medicare and Social Security (40% to 36%).

Since its last poll, in November, Marquette found that a majority of voters no longer believe the US should support Israel amid its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

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More voters believe the US should not take a position (48%) than that it should support Israel (42%) — and 7% believe the US should support Hamas, including 13% of Democrats.

On abortion, voters have not changed their opinion much since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, with 70% currently saying the procedure should be legal in all or most cases and 30% saying it should be illegal in all or most cases.

The Marquette Law School survey, which was conducted from Feb. 5-15, interviewed 882 registered voters nationwide, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.5 percentage points. 

The likely voter sample size was 706, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.0 percentage points.