60% disapprove of Biden’s job performance, 74% say inflation, border security has worsened
By BRIAN PORTER | The Rocky Mountain Voice
Donald Trump would win election in six of seven swing states with or without Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in the field, a Wall Street Journal poll in March of likely voters finds.
In a heads-up election between Trump and Joe Biden, the former president has an overall 3% lead over Biden, finds the poll of 600 voters each in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In the heads-up election, Trump would win all states and tie Biden in Wisconsin.
If Kennedy were on the ballot, Trump would defeat Biden by 3% overall and win in each of the states except Wisconsin, where Biden wins by 3%. Trump, a Republican, and Biden, a Democrat, are virtual locks for their party nominations. Kennedy is running as an independent.
The poll found that Kennedy would earn 11% overall support, with a high margin of 15% in Nevada. Some have likened his third-candidate bid to the 1992 candidacy of H. Ross Perot, in which Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush. In that election, Bush was seeking re-election and faced the Democrat governor of Arkansas. Perot implored Americans “to look under the hood” and in 1992, after exiting the race for three months to return in October, he earned 19% of the popular vote. In June, shortly before he withdrew from the race, Perot led both Bush and Clinton in polling.
The poll included more bad news for Biden, with 60% disapproving of his job as president and 47% disapproving of Trump’s job performance, a 13% difference. Respondents found Trump best able to handle the economy (+20%), inflation (+20%), immigration and the border (+20%), the mental and physical demands of the Presidency (+20%), the Ukraine-Russia war (+9%) and the Israeli-Hamas war (+14%). Biden was favored to best handle abortion (+12%) and protecting democracy (+1%).
The poll found 63% of respondents rated the economy as not good or poor and with 56% finding the economy to have gotten worse in the past two years under Biden.
Grading Biden’s performance, 74% indicate inflation has moved in the wrong direction, and indicate their personal finances have suffered. Additionally, 54% indicated crime in their community has increased and 74% indicated border security has decreased.