Twenty-nine percent of Americans think neither former president Donald Trump nor President Joe Biden are good options this election cycle, according to the latest Gallup poll, as the two presumptive nominees prepare for a November rematch.
The poll, which was published Wednesday morning, also shows 35 percent of voters saying Trump would be a good president if reelected compared to 30 percent of those who say the same for Biden. The findings illustrate how public opinion has shifted favorably toward Trump in the past four years, while Biden continues losing overall voter support. In 2020, 36 percent of respondents said Biden would be a good president compared to 33 percent who said the same of Trump.
However, the percentage of voters who believe neither man presents a good option has risen from 25 percent in 2020 to 29 percent last month. The poll was conducted from March 1-20, as Trump and Biden clinched their respective presidential nominations after gaining enough delegates during the March 12 nominating contests.
The new Gallup poll marks the highest point of dissatisfaction among voters regarding both major-party candidates in a presidential election; Gallup asked whether the Republican and Democratic nominees in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2020 would make good presidents. (Gallup did not ask the same question in 2016 because Trump and Hillary Clinton were highly unpopular at the time, the pollster noted.)
When political affiliation is taken into consideration, Republicans and Democrats largely favor their party’s candidate: Seventy-seven percent of Republicans say Trump would be a good president, and 71 percent of Democrats say the same of Biden.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of independents — the largest political bloc in the U.S. — think neither Trump nor Biden would make good options, up from 37 percent in 2020.
Of the independents who are tied to neither candidate, 46 percent say they will most likely vote for a third-party candidate come November. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West are currently running as independents, and Jill Stein is running for the Green Party. Gallup did not ask about specific third-party or independent candidates for its latest poll, but concluded they can be “spoilers” for Trump and Biden.
“While third-party candidates’ viability can depend on how many state ballots they get on, they can act as spoilers by pulling support from major-party candidates — a concern for both the Trump and Biden campaigns this year,” Gallup said in a news release accompanying the survey.
With the other third-party candidates put aside, Kennedy is the most popular alternative to the former president and incumbent and has a consistent baseline of support in most polls. In a Wall Street Journal poll published Tuesday night, Kennedy garnered about 10 percent of respondents’ votes in seven swing states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
After Kennedy announced Silicon Valley lawyer and tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate last week, Trump notably said the 70-year-old independent candidate could help him win by siphoning enough votes from Biden. “He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine. I love that he is running!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. While celebrating the prospect of Kennedy being a spoiler for Biden, the former president called him a “Radical Left Democrat.”
Meanwhile, Kennedy asserted during his vice-presidential announcement that he is a spoiler for both Biden and Trump. “Our campaign is a spoiler all right,” he said last Tuesday while welcoming Shanahan to his longshot bid.
Still, Kennedy believes Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Trump over one simple issue: social-media censorship.
“The greatest threat to democracy is not somebody who questions election returns,” Kennedy told CNN Monday night, referring to Trump, “but a president of the United States who uses the power of his office to force a social media company — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — to open a portal and give access to that portal to the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, the CISA, the NIH, to censor his political critics.”