Former President Donald Trump is viewed more favorably than President Biden among both suburban and independent likely voters in 2024 swing districts, according to a new poll.
A Cygnal survey found Trump scored a 43% approval rating among suburbanites and a 40% approval rating among independents in 39 battleground House districts.
Just 29% of both voter groups approved of Biden’s job performance, while 60% of likely independent voters and 63% of likely suburban voters disapproved of the 81-year-old president.
Trump, 77, had a 49% disapproval rating with both groups surveyed.
Overall, the former president scored a 45% approval rating in the survey, while Biden registered a 37% approval rating. Vice President Kamala Harris scored similarly to her running mate, with 37% holding a favorable view and 57% viewing her unfavorably.
The candidates are neck-and-neck across all districts surveyed, with 45% of voters backing Trump, 44% supporting Biden and 11% undecided.
Notably, neither the independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nor replacing Trump with another Republican improves Biden’s standing with the voters.
With RFK Jr. in the race, 41% of swing district voters would still back Trump, 37% would vote for Biden and 11% would vote for Kennedy.
A non-Trump GOP candidate would tie with Biden at 40% each, while raising the number of undecided voters to 21%. Second-place GOP primary contender Nikki Haley was not considered by name in the poll.
Another Democratic presidential candidate besides Biden would also lose to Trump by a three-point margin.
“Trump’s absence on the ballot would likely result in lower turnout,” stated Brock McCleary, Cygnal’s vice president of polling. “In other words, Republicans have more to lose than gain without Trump on the ballot.”
The poll further showed Republicans have a higher degree of trust from likely voters in the swing-district races, increasing the likelihood that several New York congressional districts flipped by freshman GOP members in 2022 will stay red.
Generic GOP candidates have a two-point advantage over Democrats with all swing district voters, a one-point advantage with suburban voters and a 10-point advantage with independent voters.
A majority of the voters trust Republicans more to handle border security (56%) than Democrats (26%), and that double-digit lead holds among independent, Hispanic and suburban voters.
A plurality (46%) also have confidence that GOP lawmakers to better handle crime than Democrats (31%) — as well as inflation (45% to 36%).
Nearly three in 10 battleground voters (29%) listed inflation as their top issue in the 2024 election.
However, swing districts were at odds with Republicans on the issue of abortion, with nearly half (49%) viewing GOP candidates as more extreme than Democrats.
More than six in 10 (63%) want abortion to be legal, and 48% believe the federal government should liberalize restrictions on the procedure.
The swing district survey also found that the Democratic coalition is split, with 22% of voters earning under $75,000 who believe their party should be focused on fixing inflation and 23% who believe it should address “threats to democracy.”
By contrast, the GOP’s base is highly united, with 41% viewing border security as their top priority. Nine in 10 of those voters also have a favorable opinion of their current frontrunner.
The Cygnal poll surveyed 1,500 likely general election voters in 39 swing districts Jan. 16-18, with a plus-or-minus 2.45 percentage-point margin of error.