Nikki Haley would beat Joe Biden in a landslide, polling shows
President Joe Biden better hope it’s Donald Trump and not Nikki Haley on the ballot next November.
A Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 registered voters released over the weekend shows that, were the election held today, former President Trump would beat Biden by four points. That’s more than enough for the 77-year-old Trump to cover the 2.2% margin of error, but not an insurmountable lead for the slightly-older Biden to overcome with just under a year left in the election cycle until the actual election.
However, the same poll shows former U.N. Ambassador Haley clobbers the sitting president by double digits.
“Poll after poll shows Nikki Haley is the best candidate to beat Joe Biden. This time, the Wall Street Journal poll shows Haley beating Biden by a whopping 17 points,” her campaign said in a statement.
Despite Haley’s theoretical strength against the presumptive Democratic nominee, she has a long road ahead of her if she hopes to unseat the 45th President from his perch atop the Republican party.
“Great Poll numbers in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. Frankly, great poll numbers everywhere! Thank you. MAGA!” Trump said Sunday via his Truth Social media platform.
The former president, according to an average of recent polls, nets more support among the conservative electorate than the rest of the Republican primary field combined. It’s a position he’s maintained through four criminal indictments detailing 91 felony level charges levied against him and while his business empire struggles to survive civil findings of fraud. Every legal entanglement seems to have served only to strengthen Trump’s position.
To put those numbers into historical perspective, at this point in the general election cycle in 2019, Biden was leading by almost nine points. In 2015 former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was up by three. At this point in the 2015 primary cycle Trump was beating a sizable Republican field by nearly 15 points.
Taken at the end of November and through the first week of December, the poll also shows Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tying in a matchup with Biden, and Biden losing to Trump by an even wider margin in a race that includes U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Surveyed voters tended to skew conservative, with 39% telling pollsters they were somewhat or very conservative, 27% saying they were somewhat or very liberal, and 29% identifying as moderate.
With just two months left to go until the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, Haley and Trump will both be in New Hampshire next week. The former South Carolina governor will hold four town-hall style events from the Tuesday through Thursday, with stops in Manchester, Newport, Keene, and Atkinson, while the ex-reality TV star will be in Durham on Saturday, for rally at the University of New Hampshire.