Trump performed better than Biden in polls in Michigan before the debate
Two-thirds of Michigan voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction — and a narrow majority believe former President Donald Trump is the one who can turn things around, new polling data suggests.
Trump narrowly beat President Joe Biden in a poll by EPIC-MRA, a Lansing-based polling firm. Trump came out on top in a head-to-head race between the two, receiving 49% of the vote to Biden’s 45%. Even when the leading third-party candidates were included, Trump narrowly beat Biden, 41% to 38%.
Polling data provides snapshot insights into the mood of potential voters. This poll, conducted between June 21 and June 26, surveyed 600 Michigan voters on their views on the presidential election and Michigan’s contested Senate seat. The poll was conducted using live interviews, 80% of which took place via cellphone, and has a 4% margin of error.
The poll was conducted ahead of Thursday’s debate between presumptive Democratic and Republican candidates Trump and Biden. Another poll to find out how the debate changed Michigan voters’ views is expected in July. The impact could be significant – on both campaigns – said Bernie Porn, a pollster at EPIC-MRA.
“In short, Biden had a lot of trouble telling the truth on a number of issues in an interesting and engaging way,” Porn said. “Trump was able to articulate a lot of things that weren’t necessarily true much more clearly.”
But even before the debate, Robert F. Kennedy, the strongest third-party candidate, made surprising gains in this poll over Biden’s usual base of voters. Previous polls had shown that Kennedy was attracting voters from Trump’s base.
“Given what happened (during the debate), I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a bigger problem. The Biden team needs to focus some of its efforts on getting people to stop voting for Kennedy,” Porn said.
The pollsters asked the 124 voters who, among the leading candidates from the established parties, were most likely to lean toward a third-party candidate whose second term they feared more – 40 percent said Biden, while 36 percent said Trump.
The performance of the incumbent president was also rated poorly: 69 percent of respondents gave a negative assessment when asked about his time in office so far.
Still, most Detroiters surveyed backed Biden, with 71 percent saying they would vote for him if the November election were another Biden-Trump matchup. The incumbent president is also gaining popularity among union members and black voters, whose support had lagged in recent polls.
Biden’s support in Detroit is on par with that of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin in the state’s most competitive race of the 2024 election cycle, the upcoming U.S. Senate contest, polling data show. Statewide, Slotkin outperformed her presumptive Republican opponent Mike Rogers by 2%.
Forty-seven percent of respondents believed Michigan was on the right track, and most were satisfied with the current governor—both Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s popularity and job performance were over 50 percent.
An endorsement from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could potentially help Biden increase support in the rest of Michigan, Porn said.
“One thing that could help Biden – although I’m not sure it’s helpful enough – would be if Whitmer would support Biden more directly and explain why voters and Michigan need to support Biden,” he said.
Carmela Guaglianone is a data intern with the Dow Jones News Fund at the Detroit Free Press.. You can reach her at [email protected].
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