Trump Leads Biden By 4 Points, According To Nyt Poll

Former President Donald Trump has a 4 percent advantage over President Joe Biden in a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters released Saturday.

Of respondents who said they were likely to vote, 48 percent said they would vote for the former president if the presidential election were to be held today, with 44 percent responding they would vote for Biden. Among registered voters, Trump had support from 48 percent of respondents and Biden 43 percent.

With a choice between Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining GOP primary opponent, and Biden, 46 percent of respondents favored Haley and 37 percent favored Biden.

The poll reflects a downswing in Biden’s favorability just nine months before the 2024 presidential elections, as the president faces mounting questions about his advanced age, attacks on immigration issues, and growing frustration over his handling of the war in Gaza.

In a blow to the president, 47 percent of likely voters expressed strong disapproval of his leadership, marking the highest disapproval of Biden reflected in the New York Times/Siena College poll during his presidency.

But Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign's communications director, downplayed the significance of the poll, writing in a statement that polling "consistently overestimates" the former president and underestimates Biden, and that the campaign is "ignoring the noise."

"Polling continues to be at odds with how Americans vote, and consistently overestimates Donald Trump while underestimating President Biden. Whether it's in special elections or in the presidential primaries, actual voter behavior tells us a lot more than any poll does and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and Democrats continue to outperform while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped, and deeply divided. Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win — just like we did in 2020.”

Biden isn’t alone in his unpopularity — Trump came away from the poll with a net 44 percent favorability, compared to Biden’s 41 percent.

Democratic voters also expressed doubts over whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee, with a roughly even split between respondents who think he should be the nominee (48 percent) and those who think he shouldn’t be (43 percent).

The poll was conducted Feb. 25-28 among 980 registered voters nationwide both by cell phones and landlines. The margin of error is 3.8 percent for likely voters.