Former President Donald Trump has an advantage over President Joe Biden in the U.S. states that are likely to decide the 2024 White House race, according to a poll released Wednesday.
Trump gets 48% support on average among swing-state voters, compared with 42% for Biden, according to the Bloomberg News-Morning Consult poll that focused on seven battleground states.
The Republican former president’s edge over the Democratic incumbent was biggest in North Carolina, at 10 percentage points, and smallest in Arizona and Pennsylvania, at 3 points, as shown in the chart below.
Some 51% of swing-state voters said they trusted Trump over Biden to handle the U.S. economy, while 33% said Biden would be better, according to the poll.
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On immigration, 52% said Trump would be better on the issue, versus 30% who favored Biden.
One bright spot for Biden’s re-election campaign: 53% of voters in the seven battleground states said they would be unwilling to support Trump in the general election if he were found guilty of a crime, and 55% said they wouldn’t back him if he’s sentenced to prison.
Trump faces charges in Washington, D.C., and in Georgia’s Fulton County in election-interference cases and also was indicted last year in a hush-money case and a classified-documents case. The 45th president has denied wrongdoing and argued the prosecutions are politically motivated. Many Republican voters share his views and have rallied around him.
Other January polls for swing states have shown Biden with an edge. The Democratic incumbent got 47% support among Pennsylvania voters compared with Trump’s 39% in a Susquehanna Polling & Research survey, and he got 45% support in a Michigan poll, versus Trump’s 41%.
But Wednesday’s poll jibes with a New York Times/Siena College survey in November that showed Trump leading Biden by between three and 10 points in five of six battleground states.
Meanwhile, a new national poll from Quinnipiac University found Biden with a six-point lead over Trump, as he drew 50% support versus 44%.
Women have given Biden a boost in the last few weeks, according to Quinnipiac’s pollsters, who released their survey Wednesday. Some 58% of female respondents said they backed Biden as opposed to Trump’s 36% support, up from a split of 53% to 41% in December.
To be sure, polls should be taken with a grain of salt, as they can lead forecasters astray. Polls suggested a “red wave” for the 2022 midterm elections, but that didn’t come to pass.
Nikki Haley remains in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, but she’s widely viewed as a longshot, so many analysts have moved on to preparing for a Trump-Biden rematch in the general election.
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