President Biden and former President Trump are tied in a hypothetical match-up in 2024, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll released Friday.
The poll found that both Biden and Trump each would get 45 percent support from voters in a theoretical head-to-head in two years.
Both politicians appear to be dogged by high disapproval ratings.
Fifty-seven percent of voters said in the poll they have an unfavorable view of Biden, while 55 percent said they had an unfavorable view of Trump.
Almost 15 percent of voters have unfavorable views of both leaders. That group breaks for Biden by a 36 percent-24 percent margin. However, in a sign that difference is largely anti-Trump more than pro-Biden, those voters also say by a 42 percent-29 percent margin that they intend to vote for Republican congressional candidates later this year.
A rematch of the 2020 presidential race in 2024 is a distinct possibility.
Biden has said he will run for a second term should he remain healthy, and Trump has repeatedly flirted with a run for reelection.
Should Trump run in 2024, polls show he would be the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination, and his entry would be expected to clear the field of several would-be challengers.
Biden beat Trump by about 4 percentage points in 2020, or about 7 million votes in the 2020 popular vote.
The race was tight in the battle for the Electoral College votes, however.
Biden won five key states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona — that decided the race in his favor. If three of those states had flipped, Trump would have won the Electoral College. Biden defeated Trump by a little more than 10,000 votes in both Georgia and Arizona, and 20,000 votes in Wisconsin.
Republicans boast that they are situated to perform well in this year’s midterms and potentially into 2024 amid grumbling over inflation, handling of the coronavirus, last year’s bloody withdrawal from Afghanistan and more, though it’s unclear precisely what issues would move the needle two years from now.
For instance, Republicans suffered setbacks in the 1982 midterm elections during Ronald Reagan’s first term amid low approval ratings for the then-president. Reagan bounced back two years later to coast to reelection by winning 49 states.
The Wall Street Journal poll surveyed 1,500 registered voters from March 2-7 and has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.