The two leading presidential candidates at this point aren’t polling very favorably among voters.
Former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden – who faced off in the 2020 election and are considered the favorites to emerge out of their party’s primary this time around again – are tied in polling.
The latest poll released by Ipsos and ABC News shows that both Trump and Biden have a favorability rating of only 31%. For Trump, that’s an improvement of 6 points since the survey was last conducted back in April.
The GOP candidate’s unfavorable rating is 56%, which is a 5-point decrease from the April poll.
This poll was taken after the federal indictment of Trump was made public.
Even though Biden holds the same 31% favorability rating, the news of the poll is worse for him. For one, the current president is neck-and-neck with a former president who has now been indicted twice on criminal charges – once at the federal level and once at the state level in New York.
While this is happening to his most likely challenger, Biden’s favorability rating is the lowest it’s even been in this ABC/Ipsos survey. The current president has an unfavorability rating of 52%, which is slightly below Trump’s but certainly not good.
The poll also asked participants specifically about Trump’s latest indictment that he’s facing. Of those polled, 47% said they believe that these new federal charges – which are related to how he handled classified documents – are motivated by politics. Only 37% of respondents said they believe that politics didn’t play any part in the decision to bring the indictment against the former president.
That being said, a strong 48% of the people who were polled said they believed that the former president should face charges in the case, with only 35% saying they didn’t believe he should be facing any charges at all.
This poll, of course, was taken in the immediate aftermath of the federal indictment being made public. Oftentimes, emotions run high for people when something major happens, which is why the results of this poll – while telling and interesting – may not be a great representation of how voters will think during both the primaries and general election next year.
Of course, there will be many developments in this case, and potentially others, in the time between now and when any voters will head to the polls to choose a primary candidate for their party. There’s also plenty of time for Biden to to make himself look even sillier than he already has – or to try to improve his image among the American voting public.
Whatever happens, the Biden campaign can’t be happy that their candidate has the same favorability rating as a man who has now been indicted on two separate criminal cases against him. A standing president should, after all, poll well ahead of someone who is accused of major crimes.
But, that’s not the case for Biden, and it may not bode well for his chances of being re-elected come November of 2024.
