A new Pew Research poll shows six in 10 voters describe both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump as “embarrassing.”
Trump leads Biden in the poll, 44% to 40%, conducted after Biden’s disastrous debate performance. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. polled at 15%.
Only 24% of voters said Biden was “mentally sharp” compared to 58% of voters who believed Trump was mentally sharp. The share of voters who described Biden as mentally sharp has dropped six points since January.
Nearly two thirds of voters, 64%, described Trump as mean spirited, while 63% said both Biden and Trump were “embarrassing.”
A third or more of each candidate’s supporters — 37% of Biden supporters and 33% of Trump supporters — say their own candidate is embarrassing.
Trump leads Biden in voters older than 30, while Biden leads Trump overwhelmingly in people under 30.
Trump leads Biden among white voters, 50% to 36% while Biden has a wide lead over Trump among Black voters, 64% to 13%. Kennedy polls at 21% among Black voters. Biden and Trump are tied with Hispanic voters at 36% with Kennedy at 24%. Biden also leads Trump with Asian voters, 47% to 29% with 19% backing Kennedy.
The poll found 88% of 2020 Trump voters are supporting him again, compared to 79% of 2020 Biden.
Overall, voters are dissatisfied with the race. The poll found 87% of voters say the campaign does not make them feel proud of the country, 76% say it is not focused on important policy debates and 68% say the campaign is too negative.
A majority of voters, 53% said they would be in favor of replacing Biden and Trump with different candidates, up from 49% in April. The shift has come entirely among Biden supporters. Trump supporters are less likely to favor replacing both candidates than they were in April.
Currently, 71% of Biden supporters say that if they had the ability to decide the major party candidates for the 2024 election, they would replace both Biden and Trump. A quarter say they would keep Biden and replace Trump. In April, a smaller majority of Biden supporters (62%) favored replacing both Biden and Trump.
Among Trump supporters, by contrast, the share who would replace both candidates has declined, from 35% to 26%. The share who wants to keep both candidates on the ballot has risen from 27% to 39%.
The survey was conducted from July 1 to July 7, 2024. A total of 9,424 panelists responded out of 12,207 who were sampled. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 9,424 respondents is plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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