The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll spells bad news for President Joe Biden in the midst of his 2024 campaign, with the results showing the president trailing behind Donald Trump by a sizeable margin.
According to the poll, taken between 15 and 20 September and conducted over the phone from a random sample population of 1,006 adults, Trump is ahead by 10 percentage points with 52 percent of the vote over Biden’s 42 percent.
The Washington Post stressed that this latest poll was an outlier that did not match other recent surveys, but recognized that dissatisfaction is growing among American voters towards Biden over the state of the U.S. economy and the issue of migration.
The same poll showed that a majority of 56 percent of respondents disapproved of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while only 37 percent approved of his actions. Asked the same about Trump’s handling of his job when he was in office, 48 percent approved of his actions while 49 percent disapproved.
A total of 64 percent of Americans said they disapproved of the way Biden is handling the economy, while 62 percent were unhappy with how he is dealing with the immigration situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump’s team rejoiced after the release of the new poll, with the former president’s senior adviser Jason Miller writing on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Heads are EXPLODING at the Jeff Bezos Amazon Washington Post, as President Trump now leads Joe Biden nationally by 10 points (52%-42%) after having led by 6 points (49%-43%) in May!”
Despite his 2024 campaign being clouded by the four indictments which have hit him this year, the former president is still the GOP primary front-runner. As of September 23, Donald Trump had 55.2 percent of the Republican votes, according to pollster FiveThirtyEight.
While three in five Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would prefer a nominee other than Biden to run in 2024, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll, at the moment it looks like the president and Trump are set for a rematch next year.
Launching his campaign earlier this year, Biden attempted to reenergize Democratic voters around his efforts to protect American democracy and highlighted issues such as Social Security and abortion access. However, ongoing economic issues—including high gas prices and inflation, student loan debt payments and now the United Auto Workers strike—have presented serious challenges for the president as he tries to boost support among his base.
