Polls show Donald J. Trump is a stronger candidate than he was four years ago, but that's only because many voters look back on his presidency as a time of relative peace and prosperity. Not just from.
It's also because his political responsibilities, including his criminal tendencies and legal issues, don't dominate the news as much as they once did.
A previous poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College found that more than 70% of voters said they had been offended by Trump at some point, even though they said they had been offended by him “recently.” Only 38% said they were offended.
For comparison, I did not ask this question in 2016 or 2020 (unfortunately), but my subjective judgment is that if I had asked it, more voters would have said, I would have answered “Yes” to “The person who harmed me.” question. Trump's most outrageous comments no longer dominate the news cycle like they did four to eight years ago.
Similarly, many voters appear to be ignoring his myriad legal challenges. A majority of voters said they believed he had committed federal crimes, but in the last Times/Siena poll, only a few registered voters said they were paying “a lot of attention” to news about the lawsuits against him. Only 27% of voters voted. This is far lower than the 39% in October 2019 who said they were paying a lot of attention to the Trump-Ukraine dispute (the “perfect” phone call).
It seems plausible that the lack of attention to Trump contributed to his early strength in the polls. Voters generally still don't like him. In fact, his favorability rating is unchanged from his 2020 poll. But his responsibilities aren't at the forefront of people's minds, making it easier for “double haters” (those who tell pollsters they hate both candidates) to support him over President Biden. There is.
The Times-Siena poll provides some evidence to support this idea. Biden has a 95-3 lead among 2020 voters who said they had recently been offended by Trump, while those who said they had been offended by Trump in the past but not recently Trump won 19% of voters.
Similarly, Biden holds a 93-5 lead among Biden '20 voters who pay attention to Trump's legal problems, but 78% among voters who pay little or less attention. has been acquired.
This does not necessarily mean that Mr. Biden will win back his former supporters if Mr. Trump speaks aggressively enough or pays more attention to Mr. Trump's legal battles.
Perhaps those of you who haven't been angry with Trump lately have actually read him comparing his political opponents to “vermin” or heard him say that illegal immigrants “taint the blood of our country.” It may be that they simply did not oppose illegal immigration. .
Still, it's still plausible to think that Biden's standing might improve if the news was always Trump, Trump, Trump. This background makes Trump's trial in Manhattan all the more interesting.
In some ways, the allegations against him are old news. You wouldn't expect them to flip that many votes or change anyone's opinion of him. But this is the kind of story that would have dominated the news when Trump was president, but it hasn't caught on at all in the last six months. The trial may be nothing more than a media spectacle to put Trump, not Biden, in the spotlight.
Perhaps this is a reminder to double haters why they hated Trump more than Biden four years ago.
trial polling
The early polling on the Trump trial, which began this week, is difficult to sort out.
For example, a Times-Siena poll found that most voters said his charges of falsifying business records in connection with hush-money payments were “serious” and that he was “guilty” in the case. It turns out that I think it should be done.
Meanwhile, only one in three Americans said Trump acted illegally in the incident, according to AP/NORC.
These two results seem quite contradictory. This type of division is probably due primarily to the wording of the question rather than the sample on which the poll is based.
Let's consider two questions. AP questions come first.
For each of the following, do you think Donald Trump has done something illegal, has done something unethical but not illegal, or has done nothing wrong? Do you think so? If you don't know enough to say so, you can say so. […] He is suspected of concealing hush money payments to a woman with whom he was said to have had an affair.
Whether you think Donald Trump did this or not, do you think the charges that he falsified business records in connection with hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels are very serious? Do you think it's somewhat serious, not very serious, or not serious at all?
The Associated Press' questions did not specify the nature of the potential misconduct (falsifying business records), nor did it suggest that he had already been charged with a crime. In the case of the Times-Siena poll, such references may lead voters to believe it is a serious problem. The AP's questions also offer a middle option: the accusations are unethical but not illegal.
It can be a pain to organize, so here are some rules of thumb: When I see the wording of a question having such a large effect, I usually think it's a sign that voters don't feel particularly well about the issue.
After all, most voters generally don't pay attention to Trump's legal troubles, according to a Times-Siena poll, and this is by far the least high-profile case.
Polpuri
Echelon Insight asked voters A series of…unusual…questions about whether Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump performs better at tasks ranging from building Ikea furniture to eating hot dogs.
Trump won on almost every issue, but in the actual presidential election, Biden led polls 49% to 46%.
It turns out that being good at “fighting medium-sized dogs” is not necessarily a quality that voters are looking for in a president.