America's Talking - Poll: In Faceoff With Biden, Haley, DeSantis Outperform Trump

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Former Ambassador and Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis both perform better against President Joe Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup than former President Donald Trump, according to The Center Square Voters' Voice poll. Conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, the poll found that in a hypothetical general election head-to-head faceoff, Biden would have 48% support among likely voters compared to Trump’s 44%. However, DeSantis does better in the same faceoff, with Biden getting 44% support compared to DeSantis' 47% support. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I am Dan McAulb, Vice President of News and Content at the Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the 7th Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Casey Harper, how are you, Casey? Casey, we're recording this on Thursday, November 9th. The Center Square got into the polling business this summer when we launched the first ever the Center Square's Voters Voice poll that asked 2,500 register of voters their opinion,

on a variety of issues. Well, the second round of the Center Square Voters' Voice poll is now out, and wow, there's some pretty interesting results. First, and there's really not much interesting in this, former President Donald Trump continues to trounce the GOP field in the primary race to seek the Republican Party's nomination for president. That's no surprise because Trump has been leading by double digits for many months now. What is interesting, though, is how Trump does against Democratic President Joe Biden compared to fellow Republican candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley in hypothetical one-on-one matchups with Biden. The Center Square Voter's voice poll shows that, as of today anyway, DeSanis would beat Biden,

Haley would beat Biden, but Biden would beat Trump. Tell us more, Casey. Yeah, I mean, you've laid out a really interesting parallel to see that these candidates that have, you know, been rejected by the Republican electorate have a much better chance of beating then the candidate who is probably the most polarizing in recent memory, has the most faithful followers, but also pushes the most people away. And so, and let me, I can pull up these numbers. So let's look at the math on this in a hypothetical general election faceoff. Now, to be clear, it is a year out. A lot of things can change. I mean, Biden himself is under some pretty serious

investigations for his role, alleged role on his son's overseas dealings. Now we have evidence that he received payments from his family members. We have a check for $200,000 and a check for $40,000 that went to President Biden, released by the House Oversight Committee. I say a lot to say. If that evidence keeps building steam and some kind of indictment happens, that could really shift the numbers on this. But here we are a year out. And in this head-to-head matchup, Biden versus Trump, Biden would have 48 percent to Trump's 44. percent. Okay, so a four-point spread there. That's really more than the margin of error. That's not a great look for Trump. Let me just point out to the margin of error is just under

2 percent, about when you, when you, this poll surveyed 2,600 American likely voters about a little bit more than 1,000 Republicans, a little bit more than 1,000 Democrats and about 500 true independence. So it's a significant sample size, much larger than others. And that's why the margin of error is less than 2%. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, that's right. And I'm glad that we have such a quality poll. And just to explain that, true independence, what that means is when, you know, you ask someone their affiliation, they might say they're an independent, but really they kind of lean Democrat or they really, they kind of lean Republican. And so they basically in this poll did more vetting to make sure

that the independents didn't have a bias towards the Republican or the Democrat. You know, Some people like to say they're independent, but when you talk to them, you're like, you know, you sound like you're basically a Republican. You just don't want to be called a Republican. They did vetting to weed out those people who are independent in name only. So it's true independence, people who really don't have a leaning towards either political party, which is important because those are the voters who can really decide an election. Those are the swing voters. Those are the voters that, you know, in eight months from now that candidates are going to be pivoting to start focusing on, to win their votes. And they care about different issues than the Democrat election. electorate and the Republican electorate. So a good candidate has to win their base while also reaching those true independence that we talked about. So in that same faceoff between Biden and DeSantis,

DeSantis does a lot better. Biden has 44 support against DeSantis and DeSantis has 47 percent support. So that's above the margin of error also a 3 percent win for him. And then Haley, Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor, who was, you know, big and taught we don't have to get too much in the debate, but she was front and center at the debate this week, the GOP third debate in Miami, Florida. In that same matchup with Biden, she has 44% support and Biden has 41% support. So you notice more people are unsure in that face-off, but still 3% advantage, the same as DeSantis. And my understanding, too, Casey, is that among the reasons that both DeSantis does better against Biden and Haley does better against Biden than Trump does, It's because DeSanis and Haley themselves attract more of those true independence, the middle ground.

And Haley, I think, if I remember right from the polling results, even attract some Democrats. Maybe those Democrats who are tired of Biden, who don't think he's fit for office, they're leaning more towards Haley. So it's not necessarily hardcore Republican voters sort of benefit Desanis and Haley in these hypothetical one-on-one matchups with Biden. it's those in the middle. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it is true that DeSantis and Haley are able to pull away more support from Trump than some of the other candidates like a Tim Scott, for example. So they are holding their own among the traditional Republican electorate and staying competitive, but you're right, especially Nikki Haley, is able to get a lot of Democrats to say, hey, this woman is someone that I could give a chance. I could at least listen to her.

I think, you know, what does she have that's doing that? Of course, you know, You know, she has some appeal to suburban women, which really has become, talk about who decides elections nowadays. Suburban women are deciding a lot of these tight races. And of course, Nikki Haley is a woman. She's younger than both Biden and Trump. I think there's something to be said for that. Our polling also showed that a lot of Americans are tired of these older candidates.

You know, I wrote up one feature of our poll, which found that the vast majority of Americans support some kind of age limit for who should be president and senator in. Supreme Court justice, about 59% said there should be age limit for Supreme Court justices, for example. Sixty-eight percent of likely voters said there should be an age limit for president. And they put, you know, those limits at, you know, 60 and above, it wasn't just like 80-year-olds. So even the current, you know, leading candidates, Biden and Trump will be disqualified by, theoretically by this age limit that was put that voter support. So being younger, I think helps Haley against get some of that, you know, that up for

grabs vote. And I think she also has a more, she reminds me of a 2000s Republican. She is a little bit more aggressive on the world stage. She wants to be more militarily involved in things. She's more measured and in her tone. She hasn't taken on that kind of Trumpist, Trumpy, go after the media, be really aggressive, go after the Democrats in a really aggressive way that red meat. She's more measured. And I think there's a certain kind of voter that appeals to. For this final question, I just want to bring it back to the GOP primary polling results where Trump is just trouncing DeSanis and Haley and all the others are essentially Republican voters then shooting themselves in the foot if these latest polling results show Haley beating Biden, DeSanis

beating Biden, but Trump losing to be to Biden, though GOP supporters or GOP voters overwhelmingly still support Trump. Yeah, I mean, that is kind of the natural question when you see this, but I don't think Trump supporters see it that way at all. I think that in past elections, they have, you know, they've taken chances on more palatable mainstream Republican candidates. And it's, you know, they haven't liked the results they've gotten, right? And so they trust Trump. They've seen four years of Trump already. You know, you talk about taking a risk by going after Trump, but you know what four years of Trump will look

like. And I think there's something to be said for that. Some of these other candidates that have never been in the White House, you don't know what they're going to do until they get there. But with Trump, you do know what four years looks like. And for a lot of voters, they want four more years of that. Thank you for your insights. Casey, listeners can read all of the Center Squares, voters voice poll results at thecentersquare.com. We are out of time for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAulb. Please subscribe.

Thank you for listening.