Expectations of a Trump victory in November have risen dramatically in the wake of his CNN debate with Joe Biden, new polling from Lord Ashcroft finds. Biden’s physical and mental capacity are now seen as a more important election issue than Trump’s character and judgment. While Trump is ahead on most key issues, Biden retains a narrow lead among voters overall.
The newly-published 20,000-sample was conducted in three waves – before and after Trump’s New York convictions, and after the debate. The findings include:
- Before Trump’s conviction, Americans expected a Trump victory by a 4-point margin (41% to 37%). After the conviction this widened to 5 points, and after the CNN debate it widened further to 14 points (47% to 33%). The proportion of Democrats expecting a Biden victory fell from 74% before the convictions to 67% after the debates.
- More voters said Biden’s physical and mental capacity was the bigger factor in the election (46%) than Trump’s character and judgment (43%). Just over one third (35%) of 2020 Biden voters said Biden’s capacity was more important; the same proportion of Trump voters said Trump’s character mattered more.
- Of the top 5 issues that voters said were facing the country, Trump led on the cost of living (by 19 points), the economy and jobs (26), immigration and border control (68) and crime (17). Biden led on healthcare (30). The president was also ahead on climate change and the environment, women’s rights, and social security.
- Biden led Trump by 4 points (44% to 40%) among registered voters before the convictions, by 1 point after the convictions (42% to 41%) and by 2 points after the debate (44% to 42%). All changes were within the margin of error. Robert F. Kennedy scored 10% in all three surveys.
- Across the three surveys Trump led among Hispanic voters and in all age groups up to 44. Biden led among African Americans by 54% to 20% and among older voters. 15% of both likely Trump and likely Biden voters said they may yet change their minds. Women, younger voters and independents were the most likely to say this.
- Only 8% of 2020 Trump voters said his convictions made them less likely to vote for him in November. 48% said they made them more likely to do so, and 44% said they made no difference. In the post-debate survey, the proportion of voters saying the convictions would make no difference to Trump’s chances of winning rose to 37%; 29% said they would help him and only 22% that they would make him less likely to win.
- Just under one quarter (24%) of Americans said they felt better off than 4 years ago, with 44% saying they felt worse off. 2020 Biden voters felt worse off by 33% to 31%. 2020 Biden voters said the country was heading in the wrong direction by 44% to 42%; voters as a whole did so by 63% to 24%.
- 2020 Trump voters were more than twice as likely as 2020 Biden voters to say the US was doing too much to help Ukraine. Biden voters were significantly more likely than Trump voters to say the US was doing too much to help Israel.
Commenting on the findings in the introduction to his report, Lord Ashcroft wrote:
“For much of his presidency, Biden’s re-election campaign has been a race against time. The worse the economy feels, the more willing voters will be to overlook Trump’s obvious shortcomings and put him back in the White House; the taller the green shoots of economic recovery, the less stomach they will have for the 4am tweets and other daily features of the Donald Trump show.
“As my poll found, the country is effectively divided as to which matters more – Biden’s physical and mental capacity or Trump’s character and judgment. From Biden’s point of view, this means that the economy has to work harder to compensate. Yet despite improving indicators like lower and inflation and a rising stock market, few Americans are yet feeling better off.
“Part of the Democrats’ problem is that people compare their present circumstances with how things were pre-covid, which also happens to be pre-Biden. This might be unfair, but politics is a bit like that – and only a quarter of voters, including only one in three of those who voted for Biden in 2020, say they feel better off than they did four years ago. At the same time, the new prominence of Biden’s health as a campaign issue effectively neutralises Trump’s downsides.”
The full report – Biden v. Trump: Race Against Time is at the Lord Ashcroft Polls website here.
20,210 adults in the US were interviewed online between 17 May and 7 July 2024. 10,025 of these interviews took place before Donald Trump’s felony convictions on 31 May, 5,169 took place after, and a further 5,016 took place after the presidential TV debate on 27 June. Results have been weighted to be representative of all adults in the US. Full data tables are available at LordAshcroftPolls.com.
LORD ASHCROFT KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, pollster and author. He is a former Deputy Chairman of the UK Conservative Party and honorary Chairman of the International Democracy Union.
