USA Today offers bad news to an incumbent president seeking re-election this year.
President Joe Biden heads into the election year showing alarming weakness among stalwarts of the Democratic base, with Donald Trump leading among Hispanic voters and young people. One in 5 Black voters now say they’ll support a third-party candidate in November.
In a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, Biden’s failure to consolidate support in key parts of the coalition that elected him in 2020 has left him narrowly trailing Trump, the likely Republican nominee, 39%-37%; 17% support an unnamed third-party candidate.
When seven candidates are specified by name, Trump’s lead inches up to 3 percentage points, 37%-34%, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the top of the third-party candidates at 10%.
The findings underscore the formidable political task the president faces this year to win a second term.
“I think he’s done a reasonably sound job, but it’s not been a ‘wow’ administration,” said Michelle Derr, 55, a Democrat who plans to vote for Biden. The small-business owner from Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb just outside Washington, was among those surveyed. “For me, it’s disappointing that we have two old white guys in this race again. I want to look forward to the future.”
Biden now claims the support of just 63% of Black voters, a precipitous decline from the 87% he carried in 2020, according to the Roper Center. He trails among Hispanic voters by 5 percentage points, 39%-34%; in 2020 he had swamped Trump among that demographic group 2 to 1, 65%-32%.
And among voters under 35, a generation largely at odds with the GOP on issues such as abortion access and climate change, Trump now leads 37%-33%. Younger voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020.
The possible good news for the president is that much of the support he needs to rebuild has drifted to third-party candidates, not into the camp of his likely opponent.
