Unhappiness with Biden’s performance is pervasive, with economic pessimism weighing him down

WASHINGTON—President Biden’s political standing is at its weakest point of his presidency, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, with voters giving him his lowest job-performance marks and favoring Donald Trump for the first time in a head-to-head test of the likely 2024 presidential matchup.

Biden lags behind Trump by 4 percentage points, 47% to 43%, on a hypothetical ballot with only those two candidates. Trump’s lead expands to 6 points, 37% to 31%, when five potential third-party and independent candidates are added to the mix. They take a combined 17% support, with Democrat-turned-independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drawing the most, at 8%.

Unhappiness with Biden is pervasive in the new survey, though much of it appears among Democratic-leaning groups who might still back the president on Election Day. Only 23% of voters say Biden’s policies have helped them personally, while 53% say they have been hurt by the president’s agenda. By contrast, about half of voters say Trump’s policies when he was president helped them personally, more than the 37% who say they were hurt.

Some 37% approve of Biden’s job performance, a low in Journal polling during his presidency, while 61% see his overall image in an unfavorable light, a record high. “Bidenomics,” the president’s signature economic platform, is viewed favorably by less than 30% of voters and unfavorably by more than half.

The findings deliver the latest shock for Biden and for Democrats, some of whom have openly fretted about the 81-year-old president’s stamina and have increasingly played up warnings of 77-year-old Trump’s potential return, casting the Republican as hellbent on retribution and a danger to democracy.

“Things were thriving under Trump. This country is a business and it needs to be run by a businessman,” said Aimee Kozlowski, 53 years old, of Goffstown, N.H., a Republican who plans to vote for the former president. She said her competitive gymnastics facility has been hurt as parents look to cut costs because of inflation. She’s offered some discounts but has her own higher prices to contend with.

A Biden campaign looking for opportunities to build support, however, would find a few in the new survey.

Voters see the president as better able than Trump to handle abortion, 44% to 33%, giving him an edge on an issue proven to boost Democratic candidates. Voters who are undecided on the presidential race lean Democratic in other survey questions, suggesting that they could be persuaded to back Biden nearly a year from now.

Similarly, parts of Biden’s 2020 coalition are uncommitted as of now but could return to him by Election Day. Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who conducted the Journal survey with Democrat Michael Bocian, is keeping a particular eye on the 24% of voters he calls “disaffected Democrats”—those in the party who say inflation, their personal finances or the country overall is moving in the wrong direction. Some 16% of these voters are undecided on their presidential vote, and 7% are backing Trump.

Those stances help account for why Biden is holding only 87% of voters who told Journal pollsters that they had supported Biden against Trump in 2020, while Trump is holding 94% who recall backing him.

The “disaffected Democrats” are part of a far broader group holding a gloomy view of the economy—a pessimism at odds with many recent indicators of economic strength, such as surging gross domestic product, moderating inflation and an unemployment rate that earlier this year hit its lowest mark since 1969. Employers added a seasonally adjusted 199,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported on Friday, a sign that the labor market remains solid.

Two-thirds of voters rate the economy as poor or not good, and two-thirds say the economy has gotten worse in the past two years, during Biden’s time in office. In a more expansive sign of pessimism, 48% say they don’t believe this generation will do better than the one that came before, compared with 44% who say conditions will be better for the current generation.

Economic anxiety appears to weigh heavily on young voters, an important pillar of the Democratic coalition. Less than one-third of voters under age 35 say the economy is in good shape, for example, compared with 40% of those ages 65 and older.

Bocian, the Democratic pollster, said that Biden is falling short with several groups who would consistently vote Democratic—young voters and Black and Latino voters. “They are feeling economically stressed and challenged right now. And they are not showing enthusiasm in the way they were turning out in 2020, 2022,” he said. But with the election a year away, he said, reassembling the Biden coalition “is eminently doable.”

In one sign that pessimism might be lifting, 26% said inflation is moving in the right direction, up from 20% in the most recent prior Journal poll, in August. If continued, that change could help lift Biden’s fortunes.

The president has been adjusting his messages on the economy to put more focus on taming inflation rather than on job creation. Creating high-paying jobs was a central goal of Democratic-backed legislation that funded new infrastructure and manufacturing, but voters see jobs as less of a concern than high prices. The White House recently unveiled a new supply-chain council aimed in part at stemming inflation, and Biden recently called on companies to “stop the price-gouging.”

The president and his campaign have also amplified their focus on Trump’s most contentious comments, such as his description of opponents as “vermin” and his statement last week that he would be a dictator on “Day 1”—specifically to close the border and open more land for oil drilling—both of which suggest an authoritarian approach to a potential second Trump term. Trump’s allies say Democrats are trying to distract from economic issues and problems at the southern border.

The poll finds some evidence that while views of Trump have long been fixed among the public, voters hold a dim view of some of the former president’s qualities, which the Biden campaign could amplify. Voters say that the word “corrupt” applies more to Trump than to Biden, and Biden is seen by more voters as honest. A felony conviction for Trump, who faces 91 charges in four criminal prosecutions, would shift the head-to-head ballot to give Biden a slight, 1-point lead, within the poll’s margin of error, the survey finds.

“Trump’s not qualified at all,” said Michelle Bannon, 50, an independent voter from Winston, Ga. She backed Biden in 2020 but loathes the idea of a Trump-Biden rematch. “I don’t know that Biden can go another four years, but I’ll cross my fingers and vote for him. He’s the lesser of two evils.”

But it is Biden who faces the bigger perception challenge when it comes to image and competence. Voters say Trump is the better bet than Biden to secure the border (by 30 percentage points), tame inflation (by 21 points) and build the economy (by 17 points). Biden leads on who can best deal with abortion policy, and voters say that he more than Trump respects democracy. But the president is viewed as no better than Trump on cutting medication costs—a key Democratic initiative.

“If this race is about policy and performance, then Donald Trump has a significant advantage,” said Fabrizio, who also works for a Trump super PAC. “If this race is about temperament and character, things like that, then Biden has an advantage.”

Biden’s party also carries a tarnished image. While voters view both parties unfavorably, negative views of the Democratic Party outweigh positive ones by 18 percentage points, compared with a 13-point gap for Republicans. Republicans have opened a 5-point lead on which party voters would back in congressional races next year. The parties had been essentially tied in August.

While the poll finds Trump with a dominating lead in the Republican primary, with nearly 60% support, it suggests that Nikki Haley would be the stronger general-election candidate. Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, tops Biden in a test match-up by 17 points, 51% to 34%, compared with Trump’s four-point lead.

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, ties Biden at 45% each. DeSantis had led Biden by 3 points in a Journal survey in April.

If it is held, Trump’s 4-point lead over Biden would be a significant impediment for the current president, as Trump won the White House in 2016 and nearly won in 2020 while trailing significantly in the national popular vote. This suggests that only a Biden lead of several points in national surveys would give his campaign comfort that it could win in enough states to build an Electoral College majority.

Preston Ehmke, 27, a high-school English teacher in Boise, Idaho, said he wants another Republican to emerge but, if forced, would vote again for Trump. Still, he fears the former president will turn off enough voters on the fence.

“We’re going to have all next year of watching Trump’s court cases and having plenty of time remembering he is kind of a dishonest guy,” Ehmke said. “Even if people are mad at Biden for whatever reason, I think they will come home. I can’t blame them.”

Third-party and independent candidates complicate the picture. The Journal survey finds that Kennedy would draw more support from Trump than from Biden, but that other possible candidates would take an even greater share of voters from Biden. These candidates must meet ballot-access requirements that vary by state, and the final ballot lineup in each state isn’t yet known.

The Wall Street Journal poll surveyed 1,500 registered voters from Nov. 29 to Dec. 4 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The survey was conducted through landline and cellphone interviews; some respondents were reached by text and invited to take the poll online.