Former President Donald Trump trails President Biden by two points in the 2024 popular vote despite the commander-in-chief’s lackluster approval rating and concerns about his advanced age, according to a new poll.
The Yahoo News/YouGov survey released on Wednesday found that 45% of voters said they would vote for Biden, 80, compared to 43% who said they would support Trump, 76, “if the election were held today.”
Due to the concentration of Democratic votes in big cities, a two-percentage point victory for Biden in the popular vote would likely mean a win for Trump in the Electoral College, which would make him the 47th president.
The poll was conducted between May 5 and 8, nearly two weeks after Biden announced that he would seek a second term in the White House and in the days before Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll.
The president’s narrow 2024 lead over Trump comes despite more Americans disapproving of Biden’s presidency than approving of it.
The poll found that 48% of respondents said they disapproved of Biden’s job performance, while 42% approved.
Biden also topped Trump despite more voters expressing concern over the octogenarian president’s health and mental sharpness than the real estate mogul’s.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) said they were at least somewhat concerned about Biden’s “health and mental acuity, up five percentage points from February. Almost the same number (64%) said Biden was “too old to be president.”
By contrast, only 48% of respondents were concerned about Trump’s health and mental fitness and just 41% said he was too old for another stint in the Oval Office.
Biden, already the oldest president in US history, would be 86 if he is re-elected and serves a full second term – Trump would be 82 if he were to leave office on Jan. 20, 2029.
Having Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate does little to assuage voters’ concerns, according to the poll.
Less than a third of Americans (32%) think Harris is “ready to assume the presidency,” while 48% said she is not ready to be commander-in-chief.
Her job approval numbers are similar to Biden’s, with only 40% of people approving of her performance and 46% disapproving.
The Yahoo News/YouGov poll surveyed 1,584 US adults and had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
