With Iowa Caucuses Tomorrow, New ABC News/Ipsos Poll Shows Former President Donald Trump Tops His Opponents While President Biden Hits a New Low for Any President in Past 15 Years

A new ABC News / Ipsos Poll released this morning shows that as the 2024 primary season begins, Donald Trump is well ahead of his Republican opponents on key measures of popularity, while President Joseph Biden’s job approval rating has dropped to a low for any president in the past 15 years.

With the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the national survey finds Trump especially favorable to Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents on three metrics:

• Having the best chance to win in November
• Being a strong leader
• Being the party’s most qualified candidate

Trump also leads his Republican opponents on two other attributes — empathy (i.e., understanding the problems of people like you) and shared values (i.e., best represents your values). Additionally, 7 in 10 Republicans and GOP leaners report a favorable opinion of Trump overall.

Data showed 72% of Republican-aligned adults would be satisfied with Trump as the Republican nominee, ahead of other GOP candidates:

• 72% of Republican-aligned adults would be satisfied with Trump as the nominee, similar to 75% in May of 2023
• 61% would be satisfied with Ron DeSantis, second behind Trump
• Nikki Haley was satisfactory to 48% of those polled
• Vivek Ramaswamy earned 44% satisfaction
• Chris Christie (who withdrew Wednesday, Jan. 10) garnered a 23% satisfactory rating
• Asa Hutchinson was the candidate with the least satisfaction at 17%

Satisfaction is harder to find among political moderates, who account for about 3 in 10 Republicans and GOP-leaners. They are 21% less likely than those who identify as conservative to express satisfaction with Trump, 30% less likely for DeSantis and 22% less likely for Ramaswamy. These gaps essentially disappear for Haley, Christie and Hutchinson.

Compared with Trump, considerably fewer Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents would be satisfied with President Biden as their party’s nominee, 57% — a reflection of his weak ratings, overall.

See PDF for full results.

Additional highlights from the new ABC News/Ipsos poll include:

Of those polled, 47% say Trump has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president, compared with 28% for Biden. And 57% say Trump has the physical health necessary to serve again, compared with 28% for Biden. At the same time, Biden scores better than Trump in being seen as honest and trustworthy, 41% vs. 26%.

Trump’s ratings for mental sharpness and physical health are both down 7 percentage points from last May. Similarly, Biden’s rating for health is down 5 percentage points and mental sharpness is down 4 percentage points.

If Biden and Trump were the major party nominees, 37% say they’d be likely to seriously consider a third-party candidate for president. Fewer, however, say they’d be very likely to do so — 15%. Results are identical among registered voters.

Given 2022’s highest inflation in 40 years, just 13% of Americans now say they’re better off financially since President Biden took office; 43% instead say they’re not as well off. For comparison, in the middle of Trump’s term in office, just one-third as many people, 13%, said they were not as well off.

For full data analysis, visit ABC News.com: ABC News / Ipsos Poll

This survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos via its online, probability-based KnowledgePanel®. Past polls used for comparison were conducted by telephone, with efforts in this study to minimize differences; that said, mode effects may be a factor in some cases. The survey was fielded in English and Spanish from Jan. 4-8, 2024, among 2,228 respondents.

Results have a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

ABC News Media Relations
Brooks Lancaster
brooks.lancaster@abc.com