Voters are not happy. Just 13% of registered voters said America is headed in the right direction. Only 10 percent said the economy was excellent or good. And a majority of voters said the nation was too politically divided to solve its challenges. As a point of comparison, each of these figures points to a more pessimistic electorate than in October 2020, when the pandemic was raging even as Donald J. Trump was president. Joe Biden is in trouble. His approval rating in our poll was in the low 30s. This is lower than we have ever found for Mr. Trump. Democrats would prefer to see someone else win the party’s nomination in 2024. Mr. Biden’s age was as big an issue among voters as his overall performance on the job. Of course, he probably would have fallen behind “someone else” before the last presidential primary, but he still won the nomination because his opposition was weak or broken. But it is a sign that Mr. Biden is much weaker than the typical president seeking re-election. It could portend a contested primary. Trump isn’t doing well either. Like Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump has become less popular over the past two years. The number of Republicans who have an unfavorable view of him has doubled since our last poll in 2020. It’s now below 50 percent in a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary matchup. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is already at 25 percent in an early test of the Republican primary. Mr Trump may still be in the lead, but the polls are looking increasingly like the first polls since the 2008 Democratic primaries – when Hillary Clinton found herself in an extremely close race and ultimately lost to Barack Obama – than in the polls before the 2016 Democratic primary, when he won a protracted battle against Bernie Sanders. Many voters do not want to see a 2020 rematch. Mr. Biden still led Mr. Trump in a hypothetical 2024 showdown, 44 percent to 41 percent. What was surprising: 10% of respondents volunteered that they wouldn’t vote at all or would vote for someone else if those were the two candidates, even though the pollster didn’t offer those options as an option. The midterm race is off to a close start, with voters almost evenly split on the general congressional ballot (voters are asked whether they prefer Democrats or Republicans to control Congress). That’s a little surprising, given expectations for a Republican landslide this year. The news helps Democrats. The news has been bad for Democrats, from recent court rulings to their frustration in trying to stop mass shootings, but for now it may be helping the GOP. About 30 percent of voters combined said issues related to guns, abortion and democracy were the most important problems facing the country, and Democrats had a large lead among those voters. It’s a big change from earlier in the cycle, when immigration, crime and questions about school curricula seemed likely to dominate the campaign — and help Republicans. UPDATED July 15, 2022, 7:47 pm ET Support for abortion rights is growing in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 65% said they believe abortion should be completely or mostly legal, up from 60% in the last Times/Siena poll that asked about the issue, in September 2020. Class polarization continues. In recent years, Democrats have made gains among well-educated voters, while Republicans have made gains among voters without a college degree. This trend is not stopping, the poll shows. Inflation and the economy are drawing Democrats to working-class voters — perhaps especially among Hispanics — while issues like guns, abortion rights and threats to democracy are mobilizing the party’s white, college-educated voters. There are signs of a shifting racial alliance. For the first time in a national Times/Siena poll, the share of Democratic support among white college graduates was higher than among non-white voters — a notable sign of the shifting political energy in the Democratic coalition. As recently as the 2016 congressional elections, Democrats won more than 70 percent of non-white voters while losing among white college graduates. Voters of both parties are increasingly skeptical of the country’s institutions and its future. A majority of voters say the American system of government isn’t working and that major reforms or even a complete overhaul are needed. Most voters say the political system can no longer deal with the nation’s problems, with young people particularly pessimistic. And voters of both parties differ widely in their interpretations of events such as the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.
