Voters continue to rank President Joe Biden’s age and former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles as the top reasons to oppose him in November, according to new data from a recent national NBC News poll.
In the latest poll, conducted April 12-16, respondents were asked about three potential weaknesses for each candidate ahead of the fall election.
For Biden, the idea that he “may not have the mental and physical health to run for a second term” was the top reason for 23% of registered voters. Another 17% of registered voters chose Biden’s message that “millions of immigrants illegally crossing our border” were their top concern during his presidency, while 16% chose inflation “hitting a 40-year high and making it harder to come home.” pay to match rising prices”. Another 15% said “all of these” were most persuasive.
For Trump, 20% of registered voters said the most persuasive reason for opposing him was that he “faces four separate criminal and civil trials for alleged wrongdoing, including multiple criminal charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.”
Another 14% chose that Trump “praised his Supreme Court nominees for taking away a woman’s right to an abortion” and 8% “wanted to pardon those convicted of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.”
But there was a stark difference among respondents who said neither of those messages was the most persuasive: 40% of registered voters chose Trump, compared to 28% for Biden.
A look inside the numbers shows that they are driven by Republicans being less willing to accept any weakness in Trump than Democrats are to admit to Biden’s weaknesses (even if Democrats are preparing to vote for him in November).
Seventy-two percent of Republicans chose “none” of Trump’s potential weaknesses, compared with 34 percent of independents and 8 percent of Democrats.
By comparison, 54% of Democrats chose “none” of Biden’s potential weaknesses, compared to 21% of independents and 4% of Republicans.
In other words, only 25% of Republicans said they had a compelling reason to consider voting against Trump, compared to 42% of Democrats and Biden.
That’s an indication of how the two parties are treating their candidates, said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the NBC News poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
“The two sides are suffering from two different diseases,” he said. “While Democrats are looking inward and worried about what they’re seeing, Republicans are actually more willing to look past — from my perspective — the fundamental, fundamental problems with their candidates.”
Still, there is evidence that these partisans see the question as a piece of thought that makes no meaningful difference to how they will cast their votes. In the NBC News survey, fully 92% of Democrats said they would vote for Biden head-to-head against Trump, while 96% of Republicans said they would support Trump.
Given the chance of supporting a third-party or independent candidate, 80% of Democrats favor Biden and 76% of Republicans favor Trump.
But such messages may cloud the mindset of independents, 34% of whom say they would support a candidate other than the two major parties, as well as voters who support candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West or Jill. Stein. Voters who support other candidates say more likely to change their minds before November.
Among independents, the largest group ranked Biden’s mental and physical health as the top Biden negative (29%), while a majority (34%) chose “none” of the negatives for Trump.
Among those who supported third-party or independent candidates, 35% pointed to Biden’s mental and physical health, and 26% chose the inflation message. In relation to Trump, 26% of them saw his trials, and 25% saw Roe v. They chose the message that Wade was overturned, but 28% said neither message was persuasive.
How those voters react to those messages over the next six months could be key to deciding the election, Horwitt said.
“How can either of these candidates appeal to people who are currently turned off by both?” – he asked. “Can you argue that the concerns about the other candidate are so great that not anymore [a choice between] two evils – is there a lesser of two evils?
The NBC News poll of 1,000 registered voters nationwide — 891 of whom were contacted by cellphone — was conducted April 12-16 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.