Poll: Most Americans say Biden and Trump are not 'fit' to serve as president
By: Andrew Romano (Yahoo!News)
So, why are two very unpopular candidates the leading contenders to become President? Something is wrong with our politics. And electing either of these candidates won't fix it.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Most Americans say Joe Biden and Donald Trump — their parties’ undisputed 2024 frontrunners — are not “fit” to serve another term as president, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
The survey of 1,638 U.S. adults, which was conducted from July 13-17, goes a step further than previous soundings by both Yahoo News/YouGov and other outlets, which have tended to ask whether Biden and Trump should run again — and have tended to find that most Americans would rather they didn’t.
Instead, the new poll asked a more pointed question: Whether the two human beings most likely to occupy the Oval Office come January 2025 are worthy of the position.
A full 55% of Americans say Biden is not. A statistically identical 53% say the same of Trump.
Why Americans have soured on Trump and Biden
Partisanship and polarization, as usual, play a starring role here. A near-unanimous 94% of Trump’s 2020 voters say Biden is not fit to serve as president again; 91% of Biden’s 2020 voters say the same about Trump.
To be sure, more Americans say yes when asked if Trump is fit to serve again (36%) than say yes about Biden (27%). But even that gap is almost entirely down to partisan differences, as Trump voters are more likely to affirm Trump’s fitness (76%) than Biden voters are to affirm Biden’s (62%).
But Biden still enjoys more overall support than Trump. Among registered voters, the current president leads his predecessor by 4 points (47% to 43%) — a margin that matches last month’s Yahoo News/YouGov survey.
When Americans who see Biden or Trump as unfit for the presidency are asked why they feel that way, serious concerns about both candidates emerge. Among Biden’s detractors, 20% say he is unfit because he is “incompetent”; 12% say it’s because he’s “too old”; 10% say it’s because he’s “corrupt”; 9% say it’s because he’s “doing a bad job”; and 3% say it’s because he’s “dangerous.”
Trump’s numbers, meanwhile, are nearly reversed, with 21% of his detractors saying he’s unfit because he is dangerous, 17% saying it’s because he’s corrupt, 6% saying it’s because he’s incompetent, 5% saying it’s because “he did a bad job during his first term”; and just 2% saying it’s because he is too old. (Biden is 80; Trump is 77.)
More troubling news for Trump than Biden
Trump continues to dominate the Republican field among potential GOP primary voters, with more than double the support, at 48%, of his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (23%). The rest of the Republican candidates remain stuck in the low single digits.
But while nearly half (49%) of potential GOP primary voters continue to prefer Trump to an unnamed, hypothetical alternative — the same as last month — the share who select “someone else” has now jumped to 43%. That’s 4 points higher than it was in June, and the highest number so far this year.
Similarly, Trump’s current favorable rating among all Americans (38%) is the lowest measured so far by Yahoo News and YouGov.
Trump’s ongoing legal woes may be contributing to these shifts. The current survey was conducted before the former president announced Tuesday that he expects to be indicted by special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 grand jury, citing a “target letter” he received a few days earlier.
But the results show that a sizable — and growing — majority of Americans now see the kind of Jan. 6 charges that could be brought against Trump as “serious crimes”:
● 70% now consider “inciting or aiding an insurrection against the federal government” to be serious crime, up 6 points from 64% in late May.
● 70% now consider “conspiring to overturn the results of a presidential election” to be a serious crime, up 4 points from 66% in late May.
● 67% now consider “attempting to obstruct the certification of a presidential election” to be a serious crime, up 4 points from 63% in late May.
Similarly, just 24% of Americans now think Trump should be allowed to serve as president again in the future “if convicted of a serious crime in the coming months,” down from 28% in June (when a similar question specifically referred to a possible conviction in the classified documents case).
All told, 60% of Americans think Trump should drop out of the presidential race if convicted of a “serious crime”; only 27% say he should not drop out.
Biden edges out “someone else” for Democratic nomination
Biden, in contrast, has modestly improved his position among Democrats. Today, more than half (53%) of potential Democratic primary voters now prefer Biden to an unnamed alternative Democratic candidate, up from 48% in the June survey.
That’s the highest number Yahoo News and YouGov have tracked to date, as Biden’s support vs. “someone else” has grown from the mid-30s (during much of 2022) to the low-to-mid-40s (for the first half of 2023) to just over 50% in recent weeks.
It’s also 4 points higher than Trump’s comparable number among Republican primary voters.
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Our democracy cannot be working as it should if Biden and Trump are the leading contenders to become President.
Spot on.
The problem is blind, self-interest-driven partisanship.
I am not sure if self-interest should be included, "just blind partisanship".
The self-interest reflects politicians who are not doing the work of the people but rather making decisions that benefit themselves.
I agree. The self-interest of politicians (and candidates) seems apparent and not really anything new. IMO what seems to have changed is the self interest motivation of the electorate. Special interests aren't new in politics, either, but IMO haven't overwhelmed typical partisanship as much as now.
It seems national campaigns spend most of their effort on pandering to special interests and building coalitions rather than attempting to speak to a majority. So, I'm not sure today's partisanship fits past definitions. Today's partisanship is more like an alliance of convenience rather than a coalescence of purpose. Check box politics really isn't partisan in the conventional sense.
The Republicans have an excellent alternative in DeSantis.
The Democrats have.... Newsome???
Newsom
And I do not see either DeSantis or Newsom as excellent or even good. Our political situation is abysmal.
This attitude could get Trump elected in 2024. Mark my words.
Convince enough low information voters that there is no difference between Biden and Trump and the same what the heck lets give him a chance idiocy that gave us 2016 will happen again.
I'm so sick of the bothsidesism.
There is one big glaringly obvious problem with bothsiderism, with false equivalencies. They are always false!
Probably shouldn't tie yourself to a senile old man who can't work more than a few hours a day if that's your concern.
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You have plenty................
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Is deflection all you have?
Deflection? Seems jbb posted a meme in reference to Biden. I responded. Sometimes I really wonder if you know, with some of the words you throw around, you understand the meaning of.
I don't wonder anymore. .
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Look, it's all the descendants of slave owners.
It doesn't matter what the polls say.
People will vote for the politician with an R or D behind their names no matter how bad they are. So long as the evil bastard on the other side doesn't win it is enough.
I thought it was sick when a third party candidate couldn't even garner 10% of the vote with two of the worst candidates ever in Hillary and Trump. Brandon/Trump part one was even worse. Their rematch in 2024 could end this country. Whoever wins we lose.
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