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Two polls on Sunday showed Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump, as worries about the economy and divisions within the Democratic Party over the Israel-Hamas war drag on the US president’s 2024 re-election chances.
A New York Times/CIANA poll found Biden trailing in five of Trump’s six most important battleground states due to doubts about Trump’s handling of the economy, questions about his age and dissatisfaction with other issues such as the Israel-Hamas conflict.
A CBS News poll shows Trump ahead of Biden a year before the 2024 election. The poll found that more voters would be financially better off if Trump wins in 2024, and that Biden has failed to win over Democrats the way Trump has convinced Republicans.
American voters tend to vote on domestic concerns such as the economy rather than foreign policy. But both polls show Biden faces widespread dissatisfaction on a variety of issues, including national security.
Voters said they trusted Trump over Biden on the economy by 59 percent to 37 percent, the largest gap on any issue, a New York Times poll found. Trump scored well on the economy across voters, regardless of gender, age, education or income level.
If the election were held now, a New York Times poll found that Biden would lose to Trump by three to 10 percentage points in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Biden leads in Wisconsin by two percentage points. He carried all these states in 2020.
The Israel-Hamas war in particular has divided the Democratic Party, with younger voters and people of color breaking with the president and potentially dragging down his chances in the 2024 race.
A New York Times poll found demographic groups that supported Biden by significant margins in 2020 are now more closely contested, with two-thirds of voters indicating the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Voters under 30 favor Biden by just one percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters has narrowed significantly and he had less of an advantage in urban areas than Trump did in rural areas, the poll found.
Biden has come under pressure from some Democrats to immediately end the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Last month, Biden said he supported Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas in Gaza. But he has urged Israel to follow international laws of war and do more to avoid civilian casualties.
Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a staunch critic of Biden, accused him of supporting the „genocide of the Palestinian people” and said „support a cease-fire now or don’t trust us in 2024.”
Asked about those comments on ABC News on Sunday, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser John Feiner said that while the administration disagreed with some of the terms used to describe the conflict, they knew it would draw a strong response.
„We know this is a conflict and there are strong opinions on all sides about it,” he said.
„We believe [some of the terms] There are technical limitations, some have historical resonance and weight, and we do not accept their application to this particular war, and we continue to raise our serious concerns about the toll it will take on civilian lives and the need to do more. Protect it.”
White House Press Secretary Kevin Munoz said early polls falsely predicted former President Barack Obama and Biden would lose in the 2022 midterm elections.
„We will win in 2024 by keeping our heads down and working and not worrying about polls,” he said.