Despite facing three criminal indictments, former President Donald Trump is crushing his GOP presidential nominee competitors and running neck and neck with President Joe Biden, according to the latest polls.
In battleground Arizona, a new Emerson College poll finds Trump leading Biden by 2 percentage points in a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 presidential election.
While Republican Trump appears to be getting politically stronger with each new Biden administration-led criminal charge against him, the Democrat sitting president’s popularity continues to fall among growing voter concerns of Biden incompetence, corruption, and disparate systems of justice.
“Yes, it’s early but here we go again. The first national New York Times/Siena Poll for the 2024 election cycle finds President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump locked in a 43-43% tie among registered voters,” Siena College Research Institute Director Don Levy said following last week’s release of the widely tracked poll.
The same poll found Trump leading his nearest Republican primary challenger, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, by 37 percentage points — 54 percent to 17 percent.
Meanwhile, the latest Emerson College Polling survey of Arizona registered voters shows Trump leading Biden 45 percent to 43 percent. That’s within the margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percent, but pundits say the latest results show how unpopular the incumbent is.
ARIZONA POLL
Hypothetical 2024 Presidential General Election:
Trump 45%
Biden 43%
Someone else 9%
4% undecidedWith Cornel West:
Trump 42%
Biden 41%
West 4%
Someone else 6%
7% undecidedhttps://t.co/F6pzS9JvGN pic.twitter.com/klGu2zaB0I— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) August 8, 2023
The Emerson College poll, released this week, shows Biden’s job approval at a meager 40 percent, with 49 percent of respondents disapproving of the Democrat’s performance.
Those are troubling numbers for Biden in battleground Arizona.
“Biden’s approval is underwater with independent voters at 38%. These voters’ support in 2020 helped Biden shift Arizona to a battleground state, a Democrat winning the presidential election for the first time in Arizona since Clinton in ‘96,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.
Trump again is far outpacing his Republican opponents in the chase for the GOP presidential nomination. The former president has the support of 58 percent of Grand Canyon State Republican primary voters, well ahead of DeSantis at 11 percent. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is backed by 6 percent of GOP voters, followed by Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (4 percent). No one else in the crowded field of Republican candidates polls above 3 percent.
Arizona voters find the economy and immigration to be the top issues facing the state, each receiving 22 percent, according to the poll.
The survey was conducted August 2-4 after Trump was charged for the third time this year in a sweeping indictment.
Trump faces dozens of felony counts in the three separate indictments — including federal allegations he engaged in a “criminal scheme “ to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, federal charges of mishandling classified documents, and New York state accusations he falsified business records related to hush money payments paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The former president has said the latest indictment claiming he attempted to upend the last presidential election is merely piling on election interference by a politically weaponized U.S. Department of Justice.
“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the Trump campaign asserted last week on the former president’s social network, Truth Social. “President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.”
It would seem an overwhelming number of Republicans and a fair amount of independents would agree. The latest Granite State poll suggests as much.
An exclusive new NHJournal/co-efficient poll released Monday finds 62 percent of New Hampshire GOP primary voters said they would vote to make Trump president even if he were convicted of a felony. Another 57 percent said they would vote to send Trump back to the White House even if he were “serving time in prison” on Election Day.
“As a pollster, I wonder if there is any other political figure in America who could generate this level of loyalty,” co-efficient CEO Ryan Munce told the New Hampshire Journal. “It will be difficult for any Republican to peel away these voters.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Joe Biden.
