President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump could be cruising towards a 2020 rematch with overtones of 2016, as a new poll shows each candidate with an 54% unfavorable rating.
A new Economist/YouGov poll, taken between December 16-18, asked 1,500 adult American citizens about their favorability of a number of world leaders. When it came to Trump, 42% rated him favorably—22% very favorable versus 19% somewhat favorable—and 54% unfavorable, split by 45% finding him very unfavorable to only 9% rating him somewhat unfavorable.
Biden has the exact same overall numbers, 42% favorable to 54% unfavorable. His split was similar, too—20% were very favorable, 22% somewhat favorable, 12% somewhat unfavorable and 42% very unfavorable.
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Other figures asked about included former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, with a 29%/51% favorable/unfavorable split, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a 32%/39% split, Russian President Vladimir Putin with 77% unfavorable and only 12% favorable, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with a 45%/30% favorable/unfavorable split. The poll has a 3.5% margin of error.
Given how most polls show Trump leading the GOP primaries, it increasingly looks as if 2024 will have the same candidates as 2020. However, the unfavorability ratings of both candidates echoes the 2016 election, when Trump won against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
A RealClearPolitics analysis of polls taken the week before the 2016 election show Clinton with a 54.4% unfavorable rating. Trump’s unfavorability that week was only slightly worse at 55.4%. While a Gallup poll that week made things look even worse for Trump, with 61% unfavorability to Clinton’s 52%, the polling organization points out that while Trump’s unfavorable score was the worst in polling history, Clinton’s was second-worst.
If 2016 is any indication, this could lead to a victory for Trump. While Clinton did get the popular vote by 2.9 million, Trump won with 304 electoral votes. In 2016, Biden won all the states Clinton won, plus Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. In Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, according to FiveThirtyEight, Trump leads. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania appear to be more of a tossup, with some polls leading Biden, others leading Trump, and some too close to call.
If these trends hold true over the next year, it appears that Grover Cleveland will no longer be the only president to have two nonconsecutive terms.