CORRECTION (July 14, 8:46 p.m. ET): Due to an error in the original voting documents, an earlier version of this article misstated the vote shares and margins for the multi-candidate ballot test. Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden by 3 points in a six-way poll, not the other way around.
A A new national survey from NBC News – It is carried out after the President Joe BidenFormer President Donald Trump gave a poor debate performance before a gunman opened fire on former President Donald Trump and rally attendees in Pennsylvania on Saturday. The presidential race remains steady and competitive, with Biden trailing the former president Donald Trump with 2 points in the survey.
The result was within the poll’s margin of error and had the same margin as the April poll.
However, the poll showed that the debate and its aftermath were weighing on the president and his party – although it was unclear how public sentiment would change in a country reeling from Saturday’s shooting.
More than 60% of Democrats in the poll said they would favor someone else as the party’s presidential candidate. Almost 80% of all voters reported Biden has concerns about his mental and physical fitness.
And the Democratic Party’s popularity fell to an all-time low in the NBC News poll’s three-decade history.
Still The 2024 head-to-head is at least relatively unchanged for the moment — in part because of voter sentiment about not only Biden, but Trump. Including majority of voters continue While having negative views of the former president Trump faced deficits against Biden on the questions temperament and to be honest and reliable.
Another reason the race hasn’t changed is the extent to which political partisans stick to their choices, with 71% of respondents saying the debates make no difference to how they’ll vote in November.
A third explanation is that the debates only confirmed voters’ preconceived notions of Biden, said Republican Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the poll with Democrat Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.
“The numbers change as new data becomes available,” McInturff said. “Voters have been trying to say they’re worried about Biden getting a second term for a very long time.”
Horwitt notes that the lack of change in the race is a “conclusive” story — and not favorable to Biden’s campaign.
“[Biden’s] the number was already small. “The trajectory of the race has not changed when we leave the discussion,” said Horvitt. “That’s the bigger story coming out of the debate.”
Most Democrats – 62% – prefer another party leader
This survey, which took place on July 7-9, came as a number of celebrities Democrats and Hollywood figures have called for the president to drop out, though many Democrats and key segments of the party Standing behind Biden.
(The poll also came before Biden’s press conference on Thursday and a rally in Detroit on Friday.)
In the survey, only 33% of Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents said they were satisfied with Biden as their party’s presidential candidate, compared to 62% who said they would prefer someone else.
Conversely, 71% of Republican voters and GOP-leaning independents said they were satisfied with Trump as the Republican nominee, compared to 27% who preferred someone else.
Additionally, 79% of all voters, including 61% of Democrats, said they were “great” or “moderately” concerned that Biden, 81, may not have the mental or physical health to be president. This is more than 74% of all voters who said in the election September 2023 News Poll and from 76% who said so in January.
That compares to 58% of New York voters who say they are very or moderately worried about Trump’s 34 felony convictions, and 50% who worry about Trump’s lack of mental or physical health at age 78. the president.
According to the results of the poll, Biden is losing to Trump in the main presidential attributes after the debate.
Trump had a 29-point lead over Biden in an April NBC News poll on that question, in contrast to Trump’s 19-point lead, in which the candidate was better viewed as having the necessary mental and physical health to be president.
By a margin of 49% to 31%, voters rated Trump better than Biden in terms of competence and effectiveness. Trump’s advantage here was 11 points in the survey conducted in April. (And in NBC’s 2020 poll, it was Biden by 9 points on that question.)
Meanwhile, Biden has a 16-point lead over Trump on having the right personality to be president, and a 15-point lead on being honest and trustworthy. (But in 2020, Biden had a bigger advantage over Trump on these qualities, especially temperament.)
A stable Biden-Trump (and Harris-Trump) race
Despite the changes after the debate, the poll showed a steady race between Biden and Trump.
In a head-to-head matchup, Trump leads Biden by 2 points among registered voters, 45% to 43%, within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
In the survey conducted in April, the competition was Trump 46%, Biden 44%.
A total of 12% of voters in the current poll say they prefer a different candidate, won’t vote or are undecided between Biden and Trump — higher than any other NBC News poll this election cycle.
Democratic pollster Horwitt said it was remarkable that Trump’s numbers did not change after the debate. “Although attention is focused on Biden and his struggle at this stage, Donald Trump has not changed the race in his favor,” he said.
In the matchup, Trump enjoyed advantages among men (52%-36%), white voters (52%-38%) and white voters without a college degree (62%-29%).
Biden leads among black voters (69% to 12%), Latinos (54% to 38%), whites with college degrees (52% to 36%), women (50% to 39%) and independents (39% to 30). was %).
The candidates were mostly tied among voters aged 18-34 (Trump 43%, Biden 41%).
In a hypothetical matchup pitting Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris — if Biden were no longer the presumptive Democratic nominee — the former Republican president also led Harris by 2 points, 47% to 45%.
And in the contest involving third-party candidates, the NBC News poll found Trump 40%, Biden 37%, independent Robert Kennedy Jr. among registered voters. 10%, Jill Stein 3%, chose Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver. 2% and in Cornel West 1%.
Polling for Congress was essentially unchanged, with 47% of voters favoring a Democratic-controlled Congress, while 46% wanted a Republican-controlled Congress. (In April, it was 47% GOP, 46% Democrat.)
Biden’s rating dropped to 40%
The poll put Biden’s job rating at 40% approval, 58% disapproval — down slightly from April’s 42% approval, 56% disapproval, though the move is within the margin of error.
In the history of the NBC News poll, Biden’s 40% approval rating was lower than any other president’s approval rating in the summer before re-election, except for George HW Bush, whose approval rating was the lowest. At this point in 1992, he lost by 34%.
Biden’s rating was 1 point lower than Trump’s 41% approval rating In a July 2020 NBC poll, before Trump’s failure re-election bid.
“Biden looks more like two losing presidents than any winning incumbent,” said GOP pollster McInturff.
Unpopular candidates, unpopular parties — even an unpopular first lady
What stood out in the survey was the unpopularity of all the political figures and institutions it measured — from Biden and Trump to the US Supreme Court and even the first lady.
In a new NBC News poll, the most unpopular figure or institution in terms of net favorability is the Democratic Party, with 31% of voters having a favorable opinion of the party and 50% having an unfavorable opinion.
The net rating for the Democratic Party (-19) tied the party’s all-time low in the history of the NBC News poll. The rating of the party was 37% positive and 47% negative (-10) in April.
He was followed by Harris (-18), Biden (-17), Trump (-15), the Republican Party (-14), Kennedy (-12) and the US Supreme Court (-12).
First lady Jill Biden, who has a net negative rating in the survey, was rated positively by 31% of voters and negatively (-10) by 41%.
That’s a steep drop for the first lady since the only time the NBC News poll measured her before her husband took office in January 2021.
In this poll, he had a 40% positive, 26% negative (+14) rating.
The NBC News poll of 800 registered voters — 660 reached by cellphone — was conducted July 7-9 and had an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points.