Half of Dem voters want new 2024 pick; Biden even with Trump: poll

Half of likely Democratic primary voters want the party to nominate someone other than President Biden to run the 2024 race for the White House, a new poll has found.

Although Biden is a near-certainty to be nominated for a second term next summer, only 45% of likely primary voters want the 80-year-old to be the party’s standard-bearer, while 50% want someone else, according to the New York Times/Siena College survey out Tuesday.

A plurality of Democrats who don’t want Biden re-nominated (39%) say their aversion is due to his advanced age, while another 20% say he hasn’t done a good enough job to earn a second term. Still another 14% said they would prefer someone new.

When asked how they would feel if Vice President Kamala Harris were the nominee, two-thirds (67%) of Democratic primary voters said they would either be “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” with the idea.

By comparison, more than seven in 10 likely Democratic voters (71%) said they would be “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” if Biden was the party pick — though the “enthusiastic” quotient was slightly high for Harris than Biden (26% as opposed to 20%).

The same poll found last year that just 26% of likely Democratic primary voters wanted Biden to be re-nominated, with the ensuing 12 months seeing a 30-percentage point boost in the president’s support among likely Democratic voters 65 and older.

In the primary race itself, Biden has 64% support, while environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has 13% and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson has 10% support.

In a head-to-head rematch of the 2020 election, Biden and former President Donald Trump each receive 43% support, with 6% saying they either were not going to vote at all or would not vote if those were the two major party candidates.

Another 4% said they would support someone else and the remaining 4% said they didn’t know who they would support or refused to answer.

Notably, the poll shows Biden only narrowly ahead of Trump among Hispanics (41%-38%) and self-described independents (42%-37%), while the former president leads the incumbent among respondents making both under $50,000 per year (44%-40%) and between $50,000 and $100,000 per year (44%-41%). Trump also leads Biden among respondents who didn’t vote in 2020, 37% to 31%.

Biden’s job approval rating sits at 39% in Tuesday’s poll, while only 23% of respondents feel the US is on the right track (65% say America is heading in the wrong direction). The president had a slightly higher personal favorability rating of 43%, including 83% among his 2020 voters.

Meanwhile, 41% of those surveyed had a very or somewhat favorable view of Trump. That figure soars to 83% among those who voted for him in 2020.

In another warning sign for the president, just 20% of respondents say economic conditions are “excellent” (2%) or “good” (18%) while 78% rated them “fair” (29%) or “poor” (49%).

Biden has begun aggressively touting “Bidenomics,” seeking to counter Republican grumblings about inflation and other monetary issues.

Biden has a 0.9 percentage point edge over Trump in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate and his average job approval rating is 42.1% approve to 54.1% disapprove.

The New York Times/Siena College poll was conducted among 1,329 registered voters July 23-27 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.67 percentage points.