A majority of Americans agree with US president Joe Biden on issues including abortion rights, capping insulin prices and hiking taxes on billionaires, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found, but his campaign faces a tough task in getting angry voters to care.
The 81-year-old Democrat’s prospects for re-election have been dragged down by voters’ worries about the state of the economy, concerns about Mr Biden's age and a general sense that the country is moving in the wrong direction.
Benefiting from that unease has been Mr Biden's likely Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, 77, who has a slight lead over Mr Biden nationally in a head-to-head match-up ahead of the November 5th, 2024, election.
Mr Biden’s biggest challenge may be overcoming what the poll, concluded on Monday, showed to be the deep mistrust many voters appear to feel toward their political opponents or even politics in general.
Reuters/Ipsos presented respondents with a line from a recent Trump speech that there are "communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country - that lie and steal and cheat on elections" - without first telling them who said it.
Half of respondents said they agreed with that sentiment, including 71 per cent of Republicans and 37 per cent of Democrats.
The poll then asked respondents if they knew that the line was said by Mr Trump. Among respondents who were aware, 57 per cent agreed, including 84 per cent of Republicans and 38 per cent of Democrats.
Rage and grievance are a key driver of Mr Trump’s campaign. A lasting challenge for Mr Biden will be to penetrate this cloud of anger by harnessing the relative popularity of his agenda.
Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who worked for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, said the Biden campaign needs to hope that the mood of the electorate shifts to the point where more voters are open to his message.
"There is no way you can reach people when they are frustrated. You have to wait for them to dial it down," Mr Ceraso said. "Then you hope you can find the thing that moves the voter back into your column."
There remain plenty of persuadable voters: While the margin between Mr Trump and Mr Biden is small, a quarter of respondents in the poll picked neither candidate, and 15 per cent said they hadn't made up their mind or might not vote.
The Biden agenda
About half of respondents - including three-quarters of Democrats and a third of Republicans - support passing a law to legalise abortion nationwide, a key plank in Mr Biden's re-election pitch. Independents favoured it by a two-to-one margin.
Bipartisan majorities said they supported capping the price of insulin for all Americans as well as imposing a minimum tax on billionaires - also Biden proposals.
Legislation passed by Congress and signed by Mr Biden capped out-of-pocket costs on insulin to $35 for recipients of the Medicare federal health plan for the elderly, but Mr Biden wants to extend that cap to apply to all Americans.
A majority of respondents, 55 per cent, backed Mr Biden's call to ban assault rifles. A third of Republicans and about half of independents said the US should ban assault rifles.
Mr Biden’s biggest worry continues to be voters’ fears about the economy despite a series of positive indicators that the White House continues to highlight.
Nine out of 10 poll respondents said the economy would be important in determining how they would vote, compared with about two-thirds who cited abortion access or climate change. Some 45 per cent of respondents said Mr Trump had a better approach on the economy, with 33 per cent picking Mr Biden and the rest unsure.
Trump track
Mr Trump’s campaign also has an opportunity to connect with undecided voters on his "America First" agenda, which has harnessed dissatisfaction over how the US economy has faired in global trade and decades of military interventions.
Some 37 per cent of respondents favoured Mr Trump's proposed 10 per cent tariff on all imports - significantly higher than the 24 per cent who said they oppose the idea. An even larger share of respondents, 39 per cent, weren't sure where they stood on the issue.
While US public support skews in favour of financial and military aide for Ukraine in its war against Russia, Republicans and independents lean toward Mr Trump's scepticism over arming Ukraine.
The new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 38 per cent of independents were against Ukraine aid, with 27 per cent in favour and 35 per cent unsure.
A two-thirds majority, including similar shares of Republicans and Democrats, opposed Mr Trump's proposal to impose the death penalty on drug dealers.
There was also little support for Mr Trump's musings about leaving the Nato alliance, with just 17 per cent of respondents supporting the idea. Just 29 per cent supported a Trump proposal to cease granting US citizenship to all people born in the US regardless of the legal status of their parents.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, surveying 4,411 adults nationwide between December 5th and December 11th. It had a credibility interval, a margin of precision, of about 2 percentage points.
