Biden performing worse than any Democrat against Trump: Poll

A new survey released after President Joe Biden‘s catastrophic debate performance last week shows the nation’s leader polling behind other Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, in a hypothetical matchup against former President Donald Trump.

In a one-on-one matchup among registered voters, Trump leads Biden by six percentage points, 49% to 43%, according to a new CNN poll released Tuesday. The poll also showed Harris performing better against Trump than Biden coming within striking distance of the former president.

Trump leads Harris, 47% to 45%, which is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Part of Harris’s stronger performance against Trump comes from women voters, with 50% of female voters backing Harris over Trump while 44% support Biden against Trump, and independents, 43% of whom support Harris while 34% backed Biden.

Biden’s poor debate performance has led to public fretting from Democrats, some of whom have begun to call on the president to step down as the presumptive nominee. Yet Biden, on his part, has resisted these calls and is pressing onward, arguing that replacing him would be a chaotic process that would boost Trump in November.

The CNN poll does suggest that other Democrats could do better against Trump than Biden if they were to become the Democratic standard-bearer.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), a top Biden surrogate, trails Trump by five points, 48% to 43%, while Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is behind Trump by four points, 47% to 43%. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), another presidential hopeful also trails Trump by five points, 47% to 42%.

More than half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters, 56%, said the party has a better shot at the presidency with someone other than Biden, and just 43% said the party stands a better chance with him. In contrast, 83% of Republican-leaning voters said the GOP has a better shot to win with Trump.

Another concerning sign for Biden is that independents favor Trump by 10 points, 44% to 34%, and the number of independents who do not want Trump or Biden and said they won’t vote rose to 21%, up from 15% in April.

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Biden’s approval rating hit a new low among all people at 36%, while 45% said they strongly disapprove of his performance, which is a new high in CNN’s polling.

Harris’s approval rating is lower than Biden’s. The vice president has a 29% favorability rating with 49% viewing her unfavorably, and 22% saying they have no opinion or haven’t heard of her. Other top presidential hopefuls have less recognition than Harris with 50% of the public having no opinion on Buttigieg, 48% had no opinion on Newsom, and 69% offered no opinion on Whitmer.