Former President Donald Trump stands at the doorstep of his third nomination for the presidency with an advantage in trust to handle top issues in the election, yet challenges — including his felony convictions — that so far have prevented him from fully capitalizing on President Joe Biden’s missteps.
As reported Thursday, the two run evenly in the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, even as two-thirds of Americans say Biden should step aside given his debate performance, 85% say he’s too old for another term and Trump leads by wide margins in perceived mental sharpness and physical health.
Trump’s own shortcomings help explain why. Among them, 59% of Americans say he was rightfully convicted of 34 felonies in a New York court; many fewer, 38%, accept his claim that the convictions were unjust. Indeed, 49% think he should be sentenced to prison for those crimes, while 47% think not.
In a potential risk, 22% of Trump’s backers say that if he were jailed, they’d reconsider (16%) or drop (6%) their support for him. That said, about as many in April said they’d reconsider or give up on Trump if he were convicted of those felonies. He was; his support has held up regardless — but did not advance, even with Biden’s difficulties.
A criminal record isn’t Trump’s only problem in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, with fieldwork by Ipsos. He trails Biden in personal popularity, in being seen as honest and trustworthy, and, more narrowly, in “protecting American democracy.” And polarization is such that among people who don’t support Trump now, 90% say they wouldn’t consider doing so.
Biden faces essentially the same rejection among those who don’t back him already, and the level of discontent with both candidates is remarkable. Seventy-one percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the choice of Biden or Trump as the major party presidential nominees. That blows away the number who were dissatisfied with the Trump-Hillary Clinton matchup in 2016, 58% — a race that then took the cake for unpopular candidates.
Trump’s support is deeper than Biden’s — 57% of Trump supporters strongly favor him, while just 34% of Biden’s supporters strongly back their candidate. And Biden’s strong support is down 10 percentage points from April after his widely criticized performance in the June 27 debate.
Notably, three in 10 Biden supporters say they’re mainly motivated not by support for Biden but by dislike of Trump. In contrast, just 12% of Trump’s supporters mainly dislike Biden. Given that dislike can be a motivator, this result helps Biden counter Trump’s strong support.
To be sure, not all of Trump’s supporters are thrilled with the contest: Fifty percent say they’re dissatisfied with the choice of Biden or Trump. But among Biden’s supporters, dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates soars to 82%.
The long hangover from 2022’s 40-year high in inflation may be Trump’s best calling card. Forty-two percent of Americans say they’re in worse shape financially now than when Biden took office; only 17% are better off. Four in 10 or more have felt worse off steadily since February 2023 — the most, for the longest period, in available data since the Reagan years.
Given the inflation burn, 89% of Americans call the economy highly important in their vote, and 85% say the same about rising prices in particular, the two top issues out of 11 tested in this survey. Trump leads Biden by 10 points in trust to handle the economy, 11 points on inflation.
Trump also leads, by 14 points, in trust to handle immigration, though many fewer, 66%, cite this as a top issue; by 9 points in trust to handle the Israel/Hamas war (last in high importance) and 7 points on crime and safety.
Biden, for his part, leads by double digits on a single issue tested — 13 points on access to abortion, second to last on the importance list. He has 6-point leads on protecting democracy and handling health care and 4 points on appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Still, it’s notable that Trump did not improve on any of these measures in the aftermath of the debate two weeks ago. The only meaningful shift was in the other direction, on protecting American democracy — from a dead heat in April to Biden’s +6 now.
This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® July 5-9, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,431 adults. Partisan divisions are 32%-29%-27%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News’ survey methodology here.
