When it comes to President Biden, are voters starting to have a serious case of buyers’ remorse? It sure looks that way. A new I&I/TIPP Poll limited to those who voted in the 2020 election shows former President Donald Trump sharply narrowing the gap between him and Biden and leading across most of the country if the election were held today.
For all intents and purposes, based on current voter sentiment and the margin of error, it’s a virtual dead heat between Trump and Biden, with Trump having all the momentum.
The data come from the October I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,308 adults was conducted online from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, I&I’s polling partner. The analysis for this story is based 955 Americans who voted in 2020 and revealed their 2020 vote. The margin of error for the analysis is +/-3.3 percentage points.
In it, we asked: “If the presidential election were held today, and the following were the candidates, for whom would you vote?” Respondents were given the choices of “Donald Trump,” “Joe Biden,” “Other,” or “Not sure.”
Overall, Biden still leads Trump by 45% to 44%, with 6% choosing “other” and 5% saying “not sure.”
But amid growing questions over his leadership in just the ninth month of his presidency, Biden’s slender lead looks tenuous at best. In September, it was Biden 46%, Trump 42.1%. Since then, overall, Biden lost 1.2 percentage points, while Trump gained 1.8 points.
Key demographic groups also show a swing away from Biden toward Trump. The breakdown shows a major swing from Biden to Trump in the last month.
Trump leads in the Midwest (45.9% vs. 44.9%), the South (45.8% vs. 44.6), and the West (42.4% vs. 39.7%). Biden leads Trump in the Northeast 53.6% to 39.1%.
Trump now leads Biden among those aged 45-64 (45.8% support Trump vs. 41.8% Biden), those 65 and older (50.7% vs. 39.3%), women (44.9% vs. 41.9%), Whites (50.2% vs. 38.4%), independent voters (46.2% vs. 36.9%), suburban voters (47% vs. 39.4%) and rural voters (54.8% vs. 37.2%), and married women (52.2% vs 40.0%).
Moreover, even among those who still favored Biden in October, Trump realized some significant gains. Among Black voters, for instance, Trump moved from 18.1% support in September to 20.3% in October.
Among Hispanic voters, the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S., Trump gained a hefty 14.6 percentage points, from 24.2% to 38.8%. That’s more than the 33% of the Hispanic vote that Trump garnered in the 2020 election.
Moderates, often identified with independents and other key swing voters, tacked on 5.8 percentage points to their overall support of Trump, from 32.4% to 38.2%.
Among married women, often viewed as a heavily influential voting group, the shift toward Trump was particularly notable: In September, this group favored Biden (42.4%) to Trump (42.1%). In October, they gave Trump 53.2% of their vote, versus just 40% for Biden, a huge swing.
What’s behind the steep decline in Biden’s popularity with voters?
Political watchers note that the sharp jump in inflation, failure to stem the COVID-19 pandemic, surging illegal immigration, the Afghan withdrawal debacle, the supply-chain collapse, surprisingly weak job growth and soaring energy prices have all contributed to a growing sense among many that Biden — at 77 the oldest president in history — is not up to the job of being president.
This bad news, coming early in Biden’s first term, underscores other recent polls showing a shocking loss of public confidence in Biden’s presidency.
A new Gallup Poll taken from Oct 1. to Oct. 19, for instance, shows Biden suffering the biggest decline in favorability of any president since World War II, plunging from 56% in the first quarter to 44.7% in the third quarter. That’s a 20.2% decline.
The RealClearPolitics average of 10 polls shows a freefall in favorability for Biden. Since May 24, when Biden’s favorability stood at a relatively robust 54.9%, it has declined to 42.3% as of Oct. 22, a precipitous 23% drop.
Meanwhile, a recent Quinnipiac University Survey found that “just 37% of Americans . . . say they approve of the job Biden’s doing as president, with 52% giving him a thumbs-down,” reported Fox News.
A recent televised Townhall by Biden, part of a plan to buff up his tarnished image, showed dismal ratings, garnering just 1.16 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. By comparison, a Biden CNN televised Townhall in June attracted 1.46 million viewers, while a February Biden TV event pulled in 3.4 million watchers.
“The drop in interest in what the president has to say on important issues and policy can’t be underscored enough,” wrote Joe Concha, a columnist for The Hill.
In a separate polling series this month, I&I/TIPP found Americans see Biden as a divisive political figure, particularly when measured against his campaign vow to “unify” Americans.
“Some 40% of those responding agreed that Biden was “stoking partisanship and division,” while 37% said he was living up to his pledge to “unify” the country,” I&I wrote. “A sizeable 23% said they were “not sure.” “
I&I/TIPP will continue to provide more informative data from our polls in the coming weeks and months on topics of interest to all Americans. TIPP has the distinction of being the most accurate pollster for the past five presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
A lot has happened since the end of September….if the Poll was taken yesterday I venture a guess that TRUMP would beat Brandon by a WIDE Margin!
I find it very suspect that 45% of American voters would still support Biden. The man is incompetent. He displays this every day. Vote fraud and polls along with a media that has an anti America agenda are destroying this country.
Pew Research reports that these polls have a 20% democratic bias. That would put President Trump well ahead of Biden. It doesn’t seem to matter if the democratics in the swing states get to count the votes in the high population centers.
I’d like to see the details of who they polled – ‘probably more Dems and fewer independents and Republicans than really exist. The true numbers would undoubtedly show President Trump leading by much greater margins.
Biden’s approval rating is at 36% so I would say the I&I/TIPP Poll was heavily skewed toward Biden from the outset. In my humble opinion, Trump won in 2020, but it was stolen through an unprecedented amount of election fraud. Since then Biden has managed to wreck the economy to the extent that gas prices have doubled and there are shortages in the stores up to and including food. If the election was held today and the election was honest this time (big if), Trump would win by a tsunami.
I don’t believe any of the statistics cited in this article. These numbers showing Biden within a few percentage points of Trump cannot be accurate, it’s not even close unless you’re sitting in the CNN green room.
Education has done a job on the younger generations and if they continue to destroy our educational system say good-bye to the USA.
And Trump would still be President if the democRATs had not rigged the election.
Trump already beat biden once. Polls don’t mean anything with dominion voting machines.
Did anyone poll the dominion in voting machines?
How can 955 people who were willing to reveal their 2020 votes be representative of the entire country? Just being willing to reveal their votes puts them in a specific category – nothing random about that.
And they don’t reveal the actual numbers because it would show how few people occupy each of these categories.
This is why polls are so often way off.
What I want to know is how they weighted the polling to eke out a biden “favorability” rating as high as they did?
Why is this result “shocking” to the author? Trump won in a landslide. Biden never had any firm support.
I’m surprised at the closeness. I expect some independent voters have overlooked or forgotten about the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, and the people behind that assault on democracy. Personally, I like having a president who is not all-consumed by his own ego, who has shown some ability to discern truth from fiction. And who doesn’t present an orange face to us and the world.
Trump won the first election,that explains why Hess winning the polls. They aren’t cheating on the polls!