Which country has the most energy as of November? There will be more polling as the midterm elections approach, but for now, we’ve wrapped up our first New York Times/Siena poll, and here are some notable takeaways:
Voters are not happy. Only 13 percent of registered voters said America is headed in the right direction. Only 10 percent say the economy is excellent or good. And a majority of voters said the nation is too politically divided to resolve its challenges. By comparison, each of these numbers shows a more pessimistic electorate than in October 2020, when the pandemic was still raging and Donald J. Trump was president.
Joe Biden is in trouble. His approval rating in our poll was in the low 30s. That’s lower than we’ve ever found for Mr. Trump.
Democrats would prefer to see someone else get the party’s nomination in 2024. Mr. Biden’s age has been as big an issue with voters as his overall job performance. Of course, he probably would have trailed “someone else” even before the last presidential primary, but he still won the nomination because his opposition was weak or fragmented. Still, it’s a sign that Mr. Biden is much weaker than the typical president seeking reelection. This could portend a contested primary election.
Trump isn’t doing well either. Like Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump has become less popular over the past two years. The number of Republicans who have an unfavorable view of him has doubled since our last poll in 2020. He’s now below 50 percent in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is already at 25 percent in an early test of the Republican primary. Mr Trump may still be the front-runner, but the polls are increasingly looking more like the first polls from the 2008 Democratic primaries – when Hillary Clinton found herself in an extremely close race and ultimately lost to Barack Obama – than in the polls before the 2016 Democratic primary, when she won a long battle against Bernie Sanders.
Many voters do not want to see a rematch in 2020. Mr. Biden still led Mr. Trump in a hypothetical matchup in 2024, 44 percent to 41 percent. What was surprising: Ten percent of respondents volunteered that they wouldn’t vote at all or would vote for someone else if it were the two candidates, even though the interviewer didn’t offer those choices as options.
The midterm race starts close, with voters split almost evenly in the overall congressional vote (voters are asked whether they prefer Democrats or Republicans to control Congress). That’s a bit surprising given the expectations for a Republican landslide this year.
The news helps Democrats. The news is bad for Democrats, from recent court rulings to their frustration in trying to stop mass shootings, but for now, it may be helping the Democratic Party. About 30 percent of voters combined said issues related to guns, abortion and democracy were the most important issue facing the country, and Democrats had a big lead among those voters. That’s a big change from earlier in the cycle, when immigration, crime and school curriculum issues seemed likely to dominate the campaign — and help Republicans.
Updated
July 15, 2022, 7:47 PM ET
Support for abortion rights has grown since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Sixty-five percent said they think abortion should be completely or mostly legal, up from 60 percent in the last Times/Siena poll that asked about the issue in September 2020.
Class polarization continues. In recent years, Democrats have made gains among well-educated voters, while Republicans have made gains among voters without a college degree. This trend is not stopping, the study shows. Inflation and the economy are dragging Democrats down among working-class voters — perhaps especially among Hispanics — while issues like guns, abortion rights and threats to democracy motivate the party’s white, college-educated voters.
There are signs of a shifting racial coalition. For the first time in a national Times/Siena poll, the share of support for Democrats among white college graduates was higher than among non-white voters, a notable sign of the shift in political energy in the Democratic coalition. As recently as the 2016 congressional elections, Democrats won more than 70 percent of nonwhite voters while losing among white college graduates.
Voters of both parties are increasingly skeptical about the country’s institutions and its future. A majority of voters say the American system of government is not working and that major reforms or even a complete overhaul are needed. Most voters say the political system can no longer deal with the nation’s problems, with young people particularly pessimistic. Voters of both parties differ widely in their interpretations of events such as the storming of the Capitol on January 6.
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