Americans are not happy about the looming new showdown between the Democratic president Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump in November, but that won't stop them from voting, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Since the Trump won by a margin his only opponent for Republican nominee Nikki Haley, about 67 percent of respondents in a poll conducted Monday through Wednesday said they were “tired of seeing the same presidential candidates and want someone new.” But only 18% said they would not vote at all if they had to choose between Trump and Biden.
“I hate to think that we are always looking for the lesser of two evils”, commented Kimberly Softz, a 56-year-old from Washington. “I honestly think we can do better.”
The two candidates, for their part, appear poised for another showdown after the Republican former president's back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, with the White House seeing Trump as a beatable opponent and Trump he is outraged that the Haley has not retired from the race.
A US national poll of 1,250 adults shows Trump ahead of Biden 40% to 34%. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
It's a surge for Trump, as a previous Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed him in a neck-and-neck battle with Biden. The Republican maintained a six-point lead even when voters were given the choice of a third candidate, such as Robert F. Kennedy. Trump gathered 36% of the vote intention, Biden 30% and Kennedy 8%. Just over half of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the US two-party system, while just one in four said they were satisfied.
Age
Overall in the poll there were many indications that voters are not satisfied with the options they have. 70% — including about half of Democrats — agreed with the statement that Biden should not seek re-election. 56% said Trump should not run, including about a third of Republicans.
Biden is burdened mainly by the widespread perception that at age 81, and while already the oldest president in US history, he is too old to take over the White House. Three-quarters of those polled agreed with the statement that Biden is too old to work in government, while half said the same about the 77-year-old Trump.
Just over half of Democrats thought Biden too big, while a third of Republicans felt the same way about Trump. Haley, 52, is trying to capitalize on that frustration to woo voters.
“Most Americans don't want to see another showdown between Biden and Trump,” she said Tuesday after her New Hampshire loss. “The first party to withdraw its 80-year-old candidate will be the party that wins this election.”
According to the poll, Trump is nationally far ahead of Haley in voter preference, 64 percent to 19 percent. And turnout in November's election may be higher than it was four years ago, in part because voters appear more determined to win over the opposing side.
59% of respondents who said they would vote for Biden said their main motivation is to keep Trump from winning. In contrast, Trump voters offered their positive view of the candidate and his policies, with only 39% choosing to vote for the billionaire just so Biden doesn't win. Anti-Trump sentiment helped the Democratic president win the 2020 election.
One factor that may weigh against Trump: 55 percent of Republicans said he should be convicted if he broke the law, while the billionaire has been indicted in four cases.
But most Republicans do not think Trump is guilty: only one in five believe he incited fraud in the 2020 election, while four in five believe his political opponents are exploiting the legal system to hurt his candidacy.
Source: News Beast
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