A new national poll is the latest to suggest that President Biden is struggling for support with a key voting bloc in the Democratic Party’s base – younger voters.
The president stands at 50% with former President Trump, Biden’s GOP challenger, at 48% among registered voters in a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll released on Thursday.
The margin narrows to one, with the incumbent at 50% and his Republican predecessor in the White House at 49%, among the narrower group of those likely to vote in the presidential election this autumn.
And in a multi-candidate field, the survey indicates Trump edging Biden 44%-40%, with Democrat turned independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at 8%, Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3%, and independent Cornel West with 2%.
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One reason Biden’s locked in a close contest with Trump is a weakening of support for the president among younger voters, whom he won by more than 20 percentage points four years ago, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis and other networks exit polls.
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Fast-forward nearly four years and the survey indicates Biden edging Trump by only four points among voters under 45 and just six points among those aged 18-29.
“They don’t see a lot of connection to him,” Marist College Institute for Public Opinion director Lee Miringoff told NPR as he pointed to younger voters. “They’re worried about the cost of living, which isn’t reserved just for them, but clearly, as they envision moving into adulthood, cost of living, housing costs, how to get into that next step seems to be an obstacle.… They’re seeing the economy as a lot of other voters do – laying it on Biden’s doorstep at the moment.”
The new survey is the latest to indicate rising support for Trump among the nation’s youngest voters.
Biden led Trump 45%-37% among people ages 18 to 29 in a Harvard Youth Poll released last month by the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. Biden’s eight-point advantage over the former president was much smaller than his 23-point lead over Trump at the same point four years ago in the 2020 election cycle.
The president’s lead over Trump widened to 50%-37% among registered voters under age 30, and to 56%-37% among those likely to cast a ballot in the November election.
However, even Biden’s 19-point margin among likely voters under age 30 was much smaller than his 30-point lead over Trump four years ago.
The Harvard University poll suggested Trump has made major gains among young male voters.
“Democrats have lost significant ground with young men,” the poll’s release highlighted.
The new survey by Marist for NPR and PBS NewsHour indicates that less than a quarter of younger voters approve of the job Biden’s doing as president. And while more than six in 10 hold an unfavorable opinion of the president, Trump has an above water 49%-42% favorable/unfavorable rating.
But in an opening for Biden, only 54% of Generation Z and millennials questioned in the survey said they’ve definitely made up their minds regarding whom they’ll vote for in the presidential election.
The Marist Poll for NPR and PBS NewsHour was conducted May 21-23, with 1,122 registered voters nationwide. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
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