New polling figures show President Joe Biden leading former President Donald Trump by a slim 2-point margin in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.
In a new poll released by Redfield & Wilton Strategies Thursday, 42 percent said they will vote for Biden and 40 percent said they will vote for Trump if they are candidates in the 2024 presidential election, after weighting by likelihood to vote.
Another 12 percent said they don’t know how they would vote.
Unsurprisingly, both candidates gained majority support among those who voted for them in the 2020 election, with 87 percent of Trump voters backing Trump again and 85 percent of Biden voters backing Biden in 2024.
Among 2020 Trump voters, the most popular 2024 election issues are immigration (49 percent), government spending (39 percent), and unemployment and wages (37 percent).
While the most popular 2024 election issues among 2020 Biden voters are health care (60 percent), the environment (43 percent), and unemployment and wages (34 percent).
Brendan Smialowski and Jim Watson/Getty Images
The poll comes as Biden’s approval ratings continue to fade among Americans, following a summer surge of the pandemic, a chaotic Afghanistan troop pullout and Democratic in-fighting over a multi-trillion-dollar spending package that’s key to the president’s domestic agenda.
Neither Biden or Trump have officially announced a bid for 2024, although Trump has repeatedly teased a return to the White House since leaving office earlier this year.
During a rally in Iowa earlier this month, Trump teased a potential new slogan for 2024, stopping short of formally announcing a reelection bid.
“It was supposed to be Keep America Great but America’s not great right now. So we’re using the same slogan, Make America Great Again, and we may even add to it,” he told a crowd of supporters. “Make America Great Again, Again.”
However, the ex-president has signaled that he would not be launching a bid anytime soon due to “campaign financing” regulations.
An official announcement would trigger election laws that will regulate how he can raise and spend money, and impose a legal obligation to file annual financial disclosures containing details about candidates’ personal and business finances.
There are also a slew of other prominent Republicans who have indicated interest in joining the presidential race in 2024, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence and former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
The poll sampled 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S. on October 17, 2021. Its margin of error is plus or minus 2.53 percent.
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight rated Redfield & Wilton Strategies a B/C on their pollster scores charts, with 78 percent of races called correctly out of nine polls analyzed by the website.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies is a member of the British Polling Council (BPC) and the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and abides by both organizations’ rules.
Newsweek reached out to Trump representatives for comment.
