New CBS Poll Finds 52% of Likely Voters Support Trump
Fox News Also Shows Trump with a 49-47 Lead

Hat tip Hot Air, which in turn was alerted to the polls by Rich Lowry. Regarding the Fox News finding that 45% say that Trump's policies helped them, and 48% saying Biden's policies hurt them, he asks "How does Biden survive this?"

Which is exactly what Democrats are lamenting right now:

What a terrible thing to say.

Regarding the CBS poll and its 52-48 finding -- this question was posed as a binary one-v.-one race, which the actual election will not be.

Still, 52% of the two party vote (that is, ignoring all third parties) is plenty enough to win.

CBS cries as it writes:

As Super Tuesday makes an historic rematch all but official, voters are comparing not just two presidents, but two presidencies.

And right now former President Donald Trump emerges from that comparison as the frontrunner. He leads President Biden by four points nationally, his largest lead to date. Here's why:

Voters recall the economy under Trump more fondly than they rate the economy now.

While neither gets great marks, voters today look back on Trump's presidency with relatively better retrospective ratings than they'd rate Joe Biden's presidency so far.

(For the record, in 2019 people did indeed rate the economy well, but views cratered in Trump's last year in office, during the pandemic.)

This is the case, despite the fact that views of today's economy keep inching up.

That's not helping Mr. Biden yet, at least not compared to Trump.

This is partly because Mr. Biden's policies are expected to cause price increases and Republicans overwhelmingly say they expect lower prices if Trump is elected.

This is part of a larger dynamic: Some of Mr. Biden's polling deficits come from his own Democratic base being relatively more critical of him. Twice as many Democrats call Biden's presidency fair or poor than Republicans describe Trump's presidency that way.

CBS presents its findings in bar graph form. I don't feel like snapshotting fifteen bar graphs, so here are the results written in simple text:

Looking back at the Trump economy, 65% said it was good, and 28% said it was bad. That contrasts with their evaluation of Biden's economy: 38% claim the current economy is good, while 59% accurately and honestly rate it as bad.

Looking back at the Trump presidency, 46% say it was excellent or good. 53% say it was fair or poor. Biden fares much worse: 33% say it's excellent or good, and 67% say it is fair or poor.

Trump wins on a question that Democrats used to routinely beat Republican on: Whether a candidate "fights for people like you." 48% say Trump fights for people like themselves; only 42% say that about Biden.

63% say that Trump "has a vision for the country." Only 50% will admit that Biden does (and that vision is finish turning America into a third-world shithole).

The Democrat Media's main attack on Trump is failing, too. Only 44% say that Trump "attacked our democracy" by staying in office by illegal means. 56% say he didn't -- 35% say he did try to stay in office, but via legal means, and 21% say he didn't try to stay in office.

On illegal immigration -- which, per Gallup, 86% of the public say is either an "important" or a "critical" issue -- Trump wins again. 50% say that illegal immigration will increase under Biden, and only 22% lie and claim that it will fall. Whereas 72% of respondents say illegal immigration will decrease under Trump -- a mere 9% of people lie and claim that Trump will increase illegal immigration. It is so preposterous that Trump will increase illegal immigration that this finding tells us that 9% of the public flat-out lie to pollsters in order to shape public opinion through their stupid answers.

Trump wins the battle of physical health and cognitive ability:

Note that some of these questions are asked of registered voters. The head-to-head question was asked of likely voters.

Fox News -- a very liberal-leaning poll -- also finds that Biden is trailing Trump.

With eight months until Election Day, former President Trump carries voters who say either the economy or immigration is their priority voting issue, and this edge on the top two issues gives the Republican frontrunner a 2-point advantage over current President Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup. The poll also shows Nikki Haley, Trump's last-standing Republican primary challenger, with an 8-point lead over Biden.

The liberals at Fox News are still pushing Nikki Haley. That's adorable.

Additionally, third-party candidates continue to draw from each major party candidate in possible 5-way ballots.

That's according to the latest Fox News Poll released Sunday.

In a potential rematch, the survey finds Trump receives 49% support while Biden gets 47%. That's pretty much where it's been since September. Trump's advantage is within the margin of sampling error.

Biden was ahead in August by 3 points, the first time the 2024 matchup was tested (44% Biden, 41% Trump), and by one point in October (49%-48%) -- both times within the margin of error.

Trump's advantage comes from record or near-record support among key Democratic groups, while maintaining strong support among his own constituencies.

For instance, 28% of Black voters support Trump in the head-to-head against Biden, 7 times as many as supported him four years ago (4% in February 2020). In addition, Trump has significant support among voters under age 30 (51%) and Democrats (8%), with near-record support among Hispanics (48%) and suburban women (43%).

Some of Trump's strongest groups are White evangelical Christians (68%), White men without a college degree (64%), and rural voters (60%), while for Biden it's Black voters (66%), urban voters (59%), and college graduates (57%).

One worry for Trump is that independents actually break for Biden by +8 points.

In a potential 5-way race, Trump (41%) remains ahead of Biden (38%), with both losing support to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (13%), Cornel West (3%), and Jill Stein (2%).

The 5-way is less favorable for Haley, as she loses her lead to Biden and barely edges out Kennedy: 35% Biden, 28% Haley, 24% Kennedy, 5% West, and 2% Stein.

Haley's woes come from a split among Trump supporters and MAGA Republicans. Only 45% of Trump supporters back Haley, while 38% back Kennedy. It's a similar story among MAGA supporters, as 49% of them go for Haley and 37% for Kennedy.

Biden is now viewed less favorably than Trump:

A large part of Biden's success in 2020 was that he had a considerable favorability advantage over Trump, but that has disappeared. His favorable rating went from being net positive by 4 points in February 2020 to net negative by 18 points today. But Trump's ratings have only shifted a few points, from -11 to -14 today.

Trump wins on most major issues -- except for abortion, which is a potent factor in favor of Biden:

Economy voters back Trump by a 14-point margin. Among abortion voters, Biden beats Trump handily (+56 points), while immigration voters resoundingly go for Trump (+70).

The top issue among Democrats and independents is the economy, while Republicans split between the economy and immigration....

Overall, 42% approve of the job Biden is doing and 58% disapprove, which is about where the results were in December, but is far below where he was near the start of his term (54% approve-43% disapprove in April 2021).

Compared to where recent former presidents were at this time in their presidency, Biden's 42% job approval is below his predecessors. At the start of their re-election years, Trump was at 45% approval in 2020, Obama 45% in 2012, and Bush 53% in 2004. Trump is the only incumbent who wasn't re-elected. .

This is extremely important: Voters now say that Trump's policies helped them, and Biden's policies hurt them:

In hindsight, voters are almost twice as likely to say Trump's policies helped (45%) their family during his presidency than say Biden's are helping them now (25%).

In May 2019, only 32% said Trump's policies helped them. Yet when looking back at that time, 45% now say they helped. That increase comes not only from a 12-point surge among Republicans, but from his "helped" numbers doubling among Democrats (+8) and independents (+15) from four years ago.

Meanwhile, just a quarter of voters today feel Biden's policies are helping them, as almost half say they are hurting (48%) and another quarter (27%) say they don't make a difference.

So how does Biden survive that?

Might be time for another pandemic!

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:42 PM

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