Trump maintains lead over Biden in 2024 as Americans felt safer and more prosperous during the former’s tenure, new CNN poll shows

A new poll has shown Donald Trump holds an advantage over US President Joe Biden as the campaign and Trump’s criminal trial move forward.

According to the new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, most Americans say looking back, Trump’s term as president was a success, while a broad majority says Biden’s has so far been a failure.

Trump’s support in the poll among registered voters holds steady at 49% in a head-to-head matchup against Biden, the same as in CNN’s last national poll on the race in January, while Biden’s stands at 43%, not significantly different from January’s 45%.

The poll says 55% of all Americans now say they see Trump’s previous and only presidency as a success, while 44% see it as a failure. In a January 2021 poll taken just before Trump left office and days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 55% considered his time as president a failure.

61% say Biden’s presidency thus far has been a failure, while 39% say it’s been a success. That’s narrowly worse than the 57% who called the first year of his administration a failure in January 2022, with 41% calling it a success.

Republicans now are more unified around the idea that Trump’s presidency was a success than Democrats are that Biden’s has been one. Overall, 92% of Republicans call Trump’s time in office a success, while just 73% of Democrats say Biden’s has been a success so far. Among independents, 51% say Trump’s presidency was successful, while only 37% see Biden’s as a success.

45% approve of Biden’s handling of health care policy and 44% approve of his handling of student loan debt.

Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza yields 28% approval to 71% disapproval, including an 81% disapproval mark among those younger than 35 and a majority disapproval among Democrats (53%).

A broad majority of all Americans, 70%, say economic conditions in the US are poor, with many, particularly Republicans, who feel that way saying their views would be more affected by a political shift than a change in the economy itself.

Among all voters, when independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included in the matchup, Trump holds 42% to Biden’s 33%, with Kennedy at 16%, West at 4% and Stein at 3%. Kennedy draws 13% each from supporters of Biden and Trump in the initial two-way matchup.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from April 18-23 among a random national sample of 1,212 adults drawn from a probability-based panel, including 967 registered voters.