On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced his 2024 re-election campaign — confirming that the 80-year-old incumbent will seek to win the White House for a second term.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll, which was conducted prior to Biden's announcement, found that just 26% of Americans and fewer than half of Democrats (47%) want Biden to run for president again. There is more enthusiasm among Republicans (56%) for former President Donald Trump running for president in 2024 — a gap that has persisted since the question was first asked in July 2022. Trump announced his candidacy in November.
Republicans are more likely both to see Trump as their strongest potential candidate and to want him to run than Democrats are to say the same about Biden, though the differences are narrow. Most Republicans want Trump to run and 53% say he is their strongest candidate. Among Democrats, less than half want Biden to run and just 44% say he is the strongest candidate that their party could nominate. Three in 10 Democrats say he is not, and 26% are uncertain.
Americans are more likely to disapprove (50%) than approve (42%) of the way Biden is currently handling his job as president — but Democrats' views are much more favorable. While many Democrats aren't enthusiastic about Biden running again, the vast majority approve of how he's handling the position, by a margin of 79% to 16%.
When thinking about next year's presidential election contenders, more Americans say they are focused on a candidate's issue stances over their electability than say electability is their priority. More than twice as many Americans say it is more important to agree with a candidate’s positions on the issues (59% say this is more important than electability) than to choose the person who has the best chance of winning an election (23% say this is more important than agreeing on issues).
Both Democrats (57%) and Republicans (63%) are more likely to say issue agreement matters more to them than the candidate's chance of winning the general election, than to prioritize electability.
See the toplines and crosstabs from the Economist/YouGov poll conducted on April 15 - 18, 2023 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens.
Methodology: Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to June 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (34% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.
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