The latest Fox News poll is filled with nuggets about the 2024 election and other issues -- including top line results showing Donald Trump in a commanding position for the GOP nomination, but slightly trailing Joe Biden in a hypothetical general election rematch. In the Republican primary field, Trump currently attracts majority support, at 53 percent, down very slightly from 56 percent in June. The survey finds Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a distant second place nationally, at 16 percent, followed by Vivek Ramaswamy at 11 percent. Everyone else is at five percent or lower. DeSantis leads the pack in the 'top second choice' category.
As for the general, the good news for the incumbent is that he leads all of his potential challengers. The bad news from his perspective is that he's stuck in the mid-to-low 40's in every single one of the head-to-heads presented, which is not exactly a robust sign for a sitting president with full name recognition:
🇺🇲 2024 Presidential General Election
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) August 16, 2023
Biden 44% (+3)
Trump 41%
.
Biden 44% (+5)
DeSantis 39%
.
Biden 42% (+4)
Ramaswamy 38%
Biden 42% (+6)
Scott 36%
Biden 42% (+6)
Haley 36%
——
Fav/Unfav
Biden: 43/57 (-14)
Trump: 39/61 (-22)
——
Fox News (A-) | 08/11-14 | 1,002 RV pic.twitter.com/vnVHG7KO9s
A red flag there for Trump is pulling just 41 percent against Biden, despite the incumbent's unpopularity and his own universal name ID. Biden's 57 percent unfavorable rating in the Fox data is really bad. Trump's 61 percent is worse, a finding almost identical to the AP's new national poll pegging the former president's a favorability at (35/62). Let's just say that the overall electorate is less than thrilled with what the two major parties appear poised to serve them, again, next fall:
New AP poll. People really don't want to see Biden and Trump run next year. Slightly more don't want Biden than don't want Trump. https://t.co/F90IVgSEXz pic.twitter.com/neCrVduS0T
— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 17, 2023
Biden's numbers are worse than Trump's on that metric. Trump's are worse on this one:
Seven in 10 Republicans now have a favorable opinion of Trump, an uptick from the 60% who said so two months ago. But in a crucial warning sign for the former president and his supporters, Trump faces glaring vulnerabilities heading into a general election, with many Americans strongly dug in against him. While most Republicans — 74% — say they would support him in November 2024, 53% of Americans say they would definitely not support him if he is the nominee. Another 11% say they would probably not support him in November 2024.
Nevertheless, Fox's fresh data set shows a margin-of-error race, as do several other recent polls:
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Even with Trump’s indictments, general election between Biden and Trump starts out as a dead heat — per two new reputable polls: https://t.co/zpahvtZPAm
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) August 17, 2023
I responded to this on social media: "Trump carries tons of baggage, and the path to beating him is clear. But it’s not a surefire bet by any means. Democrat will happily take their chances, I think, but a rerun of their [2016] nightmare is definitely possible — a fear they will use aggressively to fuel turnout." I laid out some of these points earlier in the week, making the case that Trump is likely Biden's best chance to win again. But people pretending that Trump couldn't possibly win are making a mistake, in my view. As for the 2020 election-related indictments against Trump, the Fox poll finds that a majority (53%) of Americans believe Trump broke the law, with an additional 20 percent saying he did something wrong, but not illegal. Only one-in-four respondents believe he did "nothing seriously wrong," though this view is held by a slight majority of GOP voters.
AP's results are similar. Notably, just 14 percent of crucial independent voters say Trump "did nothing wrong," which is his official position. As for the brewing Biden family enrichment scandals, the media unsurprisingly doesn't seem terribly interested in polling on that subject for the most part -- but there is this nugget from an entirely different survey showing that only a small fraction of the country believes the Biden DOJ's investigation into Biden and his family is being handled in a "fair and nonpartisan manner:"
"Just one in three (32%) are very or somewhat confident that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is handling its investigation [into Hunter Biden] in a fair and nonpartisan manner." https://t.co/6ZZ05mmThW
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) August 17, 2023
