President Joe Biden can celebrate some good news for his re-election campaign — a new Fox News poll finds the incumbent enjoying the support of 50% of potential voters and a two point lead of Donald Trump.
Surveys taken in late 2023 and early 2024 had shown Trump overperforming other Republicans with a narrow but stubborn lead; that seems to have evaporated as positive views of the economy inch up.
Last month, Trump was ahead of Biden by 1%; in March, he was up by 5%.
The results also show a swing in Biden’s favor with other candidates included: In May, Trump led the pack by three points, while Biden is now up by one.
The decisive shift towards Biden came from independents, who in May favored Trump by two points but now prefer Biden by nine. While independents are evenly divided on whether leadership (59%) and integrity (58%) are extremely important in their decision, they are more likely to say that Biden has integrity (+23) while describing Trump as being a strong leader (+11).
Biden and Trump’s core constituencies remain mostly loyal, with the former president holding a strong lead among men (+15), rural voters (+17), white men without a degree (+30), and white evangelical Christians (+46). Biden matches that with backing from women (+17), urban voters (+23), white women with a college degree (+28), Black voters (+43) and more surprisingly, voters aged 65 and over (+15). Biden’s 73% support among Black voters, however, is below the 79% he had in a Fox poll just before the 2020 election and the 91% he won in the election itself.
The Fox News survey, which had a 3-point margin of error, interviewed a sample of 1,095 registered voters randomly selected from a national voter file by landline, cellphone, and online survey. It was the first conducted by the media organization since a New York jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts related to falsifying business records.
Five percent of surveyed voters told Fox that Trump’s conviction caused them to switch to Biden, while 4% said that Hunter Biden’s conviction for illegally purchasing a gun led them to support Trump.
Two-thirds of respondents said the economy is extremely important issue. Though only 32% of all respondents say that the economy is in excellent or good shape, that’s the highest number in Biden’s presidency so far in a Fox News poll. Moreover, a majority of Americans (59%) say that they are either getting ahead or holding steady when it comes to personal finances. Voters still trust Trump more on the economy, by five points, but that’s narrower than the 13-point advantage he enjoyed in May.
