A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll reaffirmed an ongoing trend that former President Donald Trump is increasingly more popular than his successor, President Joe Biden.
Released exclusively to The Hill, the poll showed that 48 percent of likely voters would back President Trump in a 2024 matchup versus 45 percent for Joe Biden. As noted by The Hill:
The results were evenly split at 46 percent among women, while men backed Trump by a margin of 50 percent to 43 percent. Biden won urban voters by 20 percentage points and suburban voters by 4 percentage points, but Trump romped among rural voters by 33 percentage points.
When it comes to the 2024 primaries, the former president holds a commanding lead over his potential challengers and would be the likely nominee, with a whopping 67 percent of Republicans saying they would back him versus just nine percent for former Vice President Mike Pence and eight percent for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Surveying 1,989 registered voters, the poll was conducted from November 30 through December 2 and was in collaboration with the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll.
President Trump has consistently polled well against President Biden in recent months, starting with the botched pullout from Afghanistan and accelerating with the supply chain crisis and crippling inflation. When it comes to the 2022 mid-terms, pollsters have increasingly predicted that Republicans will sweep to victory in the U.S. House and Senate.
Another Harvard CAPS-Harris poll showed that both President Biden and the Democrats will confront a “bleak reality” come 2022, with both the president and the party floundering with a 45 percent approval rating. Pollster Mark Penn said that Republicans have been gaining ground, whereas the Democrats have lost momentum.
“The president’s ratings have stabilized underwater but the Republicans are gaining ground against the Democrats and that spells problems in the midterms,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll.
The poll also showed that 53 percent of voters are “concerned that Democrats’ roughly $2 trillion spending proposal will worsen inflation, which has risen sharply over the past year,” according to The Hill.