Former President Donald Trump drew a majority 52% support among registered voters in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with current President Joe Biden, whose support has sunk to just 42% in The Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The Post's report Sunday morning said other polling might be more accurately showing the electorate's support for Biden as closer to a "virtual dead heat."
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"The Post-ABC poll shows Biden trailing Trump by 10 percentage points at this early stage in the election cycle, although the sizable margin of Trump's lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat," the Post read.
"The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump's and Biden's coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier."
Notably, Trump was leading by 6 points among registered voters in May, too (49%-43%).
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While Trump leading Biden in a poll by double digits is unique, if not headline news in the Post, ABC News did not mention Trump leading Biden by 10 points among registered voters until the 19th paragraph, first mentioning Biden trails by 9 among U.S. adults (51%-42%) in paragraph 11.
Both headlines note the "troubles" and "criticism" of Biden age, without giving Trump credit for a strong base: ABC News: "Post-ABC poll: Biden faces criticism on economy, immigration and age." And in The Washington Post: "Post-ABC poll: Biden faces criticism on economy, immigration and age."
On the age issue, Trump is up 24 points as 74% say Biden, who would be 82 at the start of the next term, is too old to run for president, while just 50% say the same of Trump (who would be 78).
Trump leads Biden by 20 points among voters age 35 and younger.
Even a majority of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents do not want Biden to run for reelection as 62% want someone else as the Democrat nominee.
Trump, though, dominates the GOP presidential primary field among registered Republicans and GOP-leaning independents:
- Trump 54%
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 15%
- Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 7%
- Former Vice President Mike Pence 6%
- Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., 4%
- Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie 3%
- Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 3%
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson each received less than 1% support, while 6% selected "other" and 4% picked "no opinion."
While Trump continues to rise since May, DeSantis has fallen from his 25% in that month, when he first announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
Other notable findings in the poll results:
- Just 15% of U.S. adults say they are better off under Biden.
- Near three times as many (44%) say they are worse off under Biden.
- Just 37% of adults approve of the job Biden has done, while a majority 56% disapprove.
- Under "Bidenomics," just 30% approve of Biden's handling of the economy, a low point for his presidency.
- Around 75% of Americans say the economy is not so good or poor, including 57% giving it a negative grade.
- Biden gets a 87% not so good or poor on gas and energy prices.
- Biden gets a 91% not so good or poor on food prices.
- Biden gets 23% approval, 62% disapproval on the handling of the border.
Trump's retroactive approval ratings in the poll are "10 points better than when he left office in January 2021 and higher than it was through nearly the entirety of his presidency," according to the Post.
Trump is more than doubling up Biden among voters who did not vote in 2020, which amounted to 15% of the sampled registered voters. Trump led those by a wide margin 63%-27%. Trump leads Biden by 5 points (50%-45%) among those who say they did vote in 2020.
But, still, the Post went on to explain how its own poll results are an "outlier," even while admitting the sample's 2020 vote closely reflected the results of the past presidential election and not acknowledging why the electorate might be turning back to Trump.
"Outlier results occasionally occur in polls due to random error and nonresponse issues, although the political composition of the poll is typical on other metrics," the Post wrote. "Self-reported 2020 voters say they supported Biden over Trump that year by a 50% to 46% margin, similar to Biden's 51% to 47% margin in the national popular vote."
The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted Sept. 15-20 among 1,006 U.S. adults, 890 registered voters, 396 leaned Democrats, and 474 leaned Republicans. The overall results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, plus or minus 6 percentage points for Democrats and plus or minus 5.5 percentage points for Republicans.
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