Majority of Biden supporters driven by anti-Trump sentiment, poll finds

According to a CBS News and YouGov poll that was published on June 9th, most Biden backers are planning to vote for the President in November because they don’t want the former president to win. 

The poll found that 54 percent of Biden voters were voting for him to oppose the former president, a percentage that The Hill reported was up by seven points since March. But some voters had other reasons for choosing Biden. 

The second most popular reason those who planned to choose Biden in November was mainly because they liked the President. This category included 27 percent of the likely Biden voters surveyed. 

Another 17% said they were voting for Biden mainly because they believed he would be the Democratic nominee, indicating these voters would probably vote for the Democrats regardless of who was nominated. 

When the same questions were asked about how likely Trump voters planned to cast their ballots for the former president, 52 percent said they would vote for him mainly because they liked him—a stark contrast to Biden’s numbers. 

Only 34 percent of likely Trump voters planned to choose him over the President mainly because they wanted to oppose Biden while 14% planned to pick Trump mainly due to the fact that he was likely going to be the Republican nominee. 

“Both candidates have secured more than enough delegates to be considered their respective parties’ presumptive nominees but will be officially nominated at their parties’ conventions this summer,” explained The Hill’s Miranda Nazzaro. 

It’s important to note that the CBS News and YouGov poll framed some of their survey questions in a way that made the 2024 presidential election a referendum or choice and then they asked respondents to choose their preferred choices. 

When asked to look at the election as a referendum on Trump, respondents backed the current president as their choice with 66 percent choosing Biden and 34 percent picking Trump. However, these numbers didn’t tell the whole truth. 

When asked to look at the election as a referendum on Biden, the numbers shifted a lot with 54 percent of respondents indicating they would vote for Trump while Biden snatched support from 47% of those who answered the survey. 

Polling also showed that Biden and Trump were essentially tied when it came to support in battleground states. 50% of likely voters indicated they would vote for Biden while 49 percent said they would vote for Trump. This was flipped nationally. 

Trump took the lead over Biden nationally with 50 percent of support from likely voters whereas Biden was the one left with 49 percent on this metric, which means November will be one of the most interesting elections in decades. 

CBS News noted in its reporting on the polling that when voters were asked to directly compare the two presidents the findings tended to favor Trump over Biden, something that could be a major problem for the President.

“Trump outpaces Mr. Biden on a range of qualities like being seen as effective, tough, energetic and — more narrowly — competent. Also, more think Trump has a vision of where he wants to lead the country,” CBS News reported. 

“Biden does better on personal likability and being viewed as compassionate. But that likability gap does not match vote preferences, because a lot of people who dislike Trump personally are voting for Trump anyway,” the American news outlet added. 

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