Trump Takes Lead in Polls as Biden Struggles with Low Approval Rating

A group of independent voters shared their opinions on the upcoming presidential election during an appearance on ‘Fox & Friends First’. With six months left until Election Day, two recent polls suggest that former President Trump has a lead over incumbent Joe Biden in a potential rematch. According to CNN’s national survey, Trump leads Biden by 6 points among registered voters, with support for both candidates shifting from previous surveys conducted this year. In the same five-person race including Democrat turned independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., independent progressive candidate Cornell West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Trump tops Biden in a head-to-head matchup by 16 points (49% to 33%) while polling at 42%. These findings differ from other national surveys conducted around the same time by Quinnipiac University, Marist College, NBC News and The New York Times/Siena College that suggest a much closer contest. A significant change in perception since Trump’s departure has led to most Americans (55%) now viewing his presidency as successful rather than failing, with Biden rated ‘failure’ by 61% of the same CNN survey participants so far during his term. Gallup polling shows that this trend is not new and appears favourable towards former presidents; a factor that seems to work in Trump’s benefit looking at ratings now versus how opinions stood when he was exiting office, following January 2021’s Capitol attack. Biden continues underwater with only a 40% approval rating on his performance thus far and an overall disapproval of 60%. This is the lowest recorded job approval rate during the first quarter of any president’s re-election year since Dwight Eisenhower, according to Gallup polling. Only one out of nine presidents elected for their initial term since then has ever achieved this unfavourable status at this point and went ahead with winning a second tenure; Obama in 2011/12 during his first-term re-election bid was among them, while the other four – Carter, George H.W Bush, Barack Obama, Trump – did not win their subsequent elections despite having approval ratings under 50% at this point in time based on Gallup polling results from that era. The CNN survey’s sample size consisted of 1212 adults questioned during the April 18-23 period, and has a margin of error plus or minus 3.4 percentage points overall.