Just over a year out from the 2024 presidential election, polling of a hypothetical rematch between former and potentially future President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden looks to be close. There's still time for the polls to change in either direction, so it will definitely be a rematch worth watching, assuming these are the candidates the GOP and DNC select to be their nominees. Biden is likely getting a challenger in Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), and while Trump is currently the Republican frontrunner, he's running against a dozen other candidates with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley especially looking to give him a run for his money.
As more polling comes out, there's been a deep dive to see how Trump and Biden perform with certain demographics. Last Friday, Emerson College released a poll not only showing that Trump is ahead of Biden 47-45 percent, with eight percent also undecided, but also that he's making "inroads" with young voters.
To be exact, Trump's lead is at 47.2 percent to Biden's 44.6 percent, which is just outside the margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. According to RealClearPolitics (RCP), Trump is up 44.6 percent to Biden's 44.1 percent.
NATIONAL POLL
— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) October 20, 2023
2024 Hypothetical Presidential Election
Trump 47%
Biden 45%
8% undecidedhttps://t.co/SATmUK12uD pic.twitter.com/ujWh0eDbkV
The poll's executive director, Spencer Kimball, highlighted the results about young people. "While the poll reflects voters under 30 breaking for Biden by significant margins in 2020, 45% of voters under 30 support Trump in 2024 in this survey while 43% support Biden," he said. "These voters are most likely to be undecided among all age groups, at 12%. Even with progressive candidate Bernie Sanders on the ballot, the election is statistically similar among this group, 45% supporting Sanders and 42% Trump. The impact of Trump on younger voters is better seen in the Romney v. Biden ballot test where Biden leads 50% to 24% among voters under 30, more reflective of Biden's 2020 support."
Voters aged 18-29 made up 16 percent of the respondents, just as those voters aged 30-39, 40-49, and those older than 70 do. Those aged 50-59 make up 17 percent of the poll, while those aged 60-69 make up 19 percent.
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Trump holds a commanding lead over the field of Republican presidential candidates, with 59 percent support. DeSantis and Haley each have 8 percent support. This is similar to the RCP average of the overall Republican presidential primary field, where Trump enjoys 59 percent, although DeSantis' level of support is slightly higher, at 12.7 percent. Haley is at 7.8 percent support.
NATIONAL POLL
— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) October 20, 2023
2024 GOP Primary
Trump 59%
Haley 8%
DeSantis 8%
Christie 4%
Pence 3%
Ramaswamy 3%
Scott 1%
Burgum 1%
Hutchinson 1%
Johnson 1%
Elder 1%https://t.co/SATmUK12uD
The poll included 1,578 registered voters and was conducted October 16-17.
The findings are a "big if true" moment, but Emerson also has an A- rating from FiveThirtyEight. Some have expressed doubt about the poll's results, including @MaxNordau, who often posts in support of DeSantis on X (formerly known as Twitter).
JUST IN: According to a new Emerson poll, Mr. Trump is up 2% over Biden among voters under 30 yrs old.
— Max (@MaxNordau) October 21, 2023
Trump lost this group by 24 points in 2020.
Why do you think Emerson is working so hard to produce obviously fraudulent polls?
As his post mentions, 59 percent of voters aged 18-29 voted for Biden, while 35 percent voted for Trump, making that a 24-point margin, according to numbers from Pew Research. The numbers compared voting patterns to 2016, however, and Trump did gain support among such voters since he only had 28 percent support when going up against Hillary Clinton.
Not long after the 2020 election, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) put out research on "Election Week 2020: Young People Increase Turnout, Lead Biden to Victory."
"We estimate that young people turned out at a higher rate in 2020 than in 2016, and their impact—especially youth of color's overwhelming support for Biden—was decisive in key races across the country," a release on that research noted.
It's certainly possible that this poll is an outlier when it comes to young people supporting Trump, but it's not surprising that 12 percent of young people would be undecided. Over the years of Biden's presidency, young people have been particularly critical of him as shown by their approval ratings, though that doesn't necessarily mean they'll vote for Trump or any Republican. Regardless of how much of an outlier it is, it's not good news for an incumbent president running for reelection, especially when young voters were key to his election win in 2020.
Curiously, this Emerson College poll shows that 42.5 percent of this age group still approves of the job that Biden is doing, while 42.9 percent disapprove. They are, however, the most likely to support Trump in the primary, with 65.6 percent selecting him as their candidate among other Republicans. And, they're the least supportive of Biden in the Democratic primary when faced with him or Marianne Williamson as their choice, with 57.1 percent selecting Biden as opposed to the 21.1 percent who would choose Williamson, by far her most supportive age group.
Another poll looking at support for Biden and Trump by age group showed far different results. For instance, a recent poll from The Economist/YouGov showed Biden with 50 percent support among respondents 18-29, while Trump had only 18 percent. Other than demographics by political party and partisan leaning, this was one of Biden's most supportive age groups, other than the 58 percent of black respondents who would select Biden over the 10 percent who would select Trump.
Bill Maher and his audience reacted to Emerson's findings during Friday's episode of "Real Time" with audible gasps. As guest Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist who worked for the Bill Clinton presidential campaign and the White House, put it, "The polls are terrible for Biden."
Listen to Bill Maher's crowd audibly horrified at Biden's poll numbers against Trump:
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) October 21, 2023
"And if you really wanna shit your pants, Emerson poll today: Trump is winning among under 30."
*Gasps from crowd*
"Wow"
"Yeah that's what I did"
"The polls are terrible for Biden" pic.twitter.com/jWUc15INSN
