New WSJ Battleground Poll Has Very Bad News for Biden

Leah Barkoukis | April 03, 2024 11:00 AM

A new Wall Street Journal survey shows former President Trump ahead of President Biden in six out of seven battleground states as voters show deep dissatisfaction with the U.S. economy and the incumbent’s job performance.

Even with third-party candidates factored into the race, the 45^th president enjoys leads between 2 and 8 percentage points in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, the survey found. Similar results were seen in a head-to-head matchup with Biden.

The president is ahead by 3 percentage points in Wisconsin on a multi-candidate ballot, while the two are tied when voters are asked only about him and Trump.

Overall, the poll shows substantial unhappiness with Biden among voters who will have the most influence in the outcome of the election, as expanded one-party dominance in states has left just a few as politically competitive.
Biden pulled off a remarkable feat in 2020, winning three states—Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—in the industrial North, which had been slipping from Democrats’ grasp and had backed Trump in 2016. He won by even narrower margins in Georgia and Arizona, two fast-diversifying states in the South and Southwest where Democrats had long-unfulfilled hopes of victory.
Two more states are also viewed as in play: Nevada, which Biden won but where Democratic margins have narrowed, and North Carolina, the state that backed Trump by the slimmest margin in 2020.
Both campaigns will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and turnout efforts in these seven states, which account for 93 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to win. (The Wall Street Journal)

Voters also expressed their discontent with Biden's job performance in the states surveyed, with negative attitudes outweighing positive ones by double digits. The difference in how respondents viewed Biden vs. Trump on having the physical and mental fitness to handle the responsibilities associated with being commander in chief was also stark, with 48 percent choosing Trump and just 28 percent saying Biden.

The survey of 4,200 voters (600 voters in each of the battleground states) was conducted March 17-24 and has a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points for the entire sample and 4 points for results from the individual states.