Shocking news: Americans aren't excited about their choice in the 2024 presidential election. According to the 538 average*, only 43 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of former President Donald Trump, while 53 percent have a negative opinion. And only 40 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of President Joe Biden. 55% have a disadvantage.
It is historically unusual for a candidate from a major party to be so unpopular, let alone from either party. Using the 538 current poll averaging method, we computed retrospective favorability averages for all Democratic and Republican presidential candidates since 1980. **By late October, before his election, only seven of his 22 candidates had negative net favorability ratings.
If Trump and Biden's net favorability ratings remain below the surface until Election Day, 2024 will be the second presidential election since at least 1980 in which Americans have negative views of both candidates. The first time was in 2016, and it's also the only recent presidential election in which two candidates were, on average, more hated than Trump and Biden.
We may have entered an era in which presidential candidates will be forever unpopular because most Americans stick to their partisan camps and believe the country is moving in the wrong direction. Prior to 2016, no presidential candidate had been underperforming by more than 9 percentage points in at least 36 years. Since then, 5 out of 6 have done so.
Granted, that assumes Trump and Biden remain this unpopular all year. There are still seven months until Election Day, but that's plenty of time for Trump and Biden to move up the rankings. But in the grand scheme of American history, three election cycles are just a blip, so this may just be a blip born out of this particular political moment (i.e. a very unpopular candidate). (3 out of 5 were/are Trump). .
This also begs the question of whether their likeability matters at all when both candidates are so unpopular.
Let's take another look at the retrospective favorability averages of past presidential candidates. This time, we're comparing each candidate to their opponent. Perhaps unsurprisingly, candidates with higher net favorability ratings in late October went on to win eight out of 11 elections.
However, this is not a hard and fast rule. Three times, candidates with lower net favorability actually won (although in one case, in 2004, for then-President George W. Bush and then-Senator John Kerry, candidates with lower net favorability actually won) were tied). One of those was his 2016, the only other year in which Americans disliked both candidates. That year, Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, even though her net favorability rating was lower than hers (-25 points to -12 points).
When Americans dislike both options, it's no surprise that sometimes weird things happen. It's very easy to predict what will happen if one candidate is popular and the other is unpopular. That means the popular candidate wins. However, if both candidates are unpopular, neither candidate can reach a majority without gaining support from voters they dislike.
This means that predicting the winner of an election is not as simple as simply choosing an unpopular candidate. Indeed, it is mathematically easier for that candidate to get the winning votes simply because there are fewer “haters” to convert.But they still have to convert some, which means forcing haters to choose who to hate. few.That's a different question than which candidate has the policies. small number You can't tell by just likability. ***
Thankfully, some polling organizations are asking respondents not just whether they have an unfavorable view of a candidate, but how strongly they feel that way. And on this score, Trump and Biden are more evenly matched. A simple average of polls conducted in March shows that Americans (43 percent) have a very unfavorable view of Trump, even though Biden has a higher overall unfavorable rating. Slightly more people had a very unfavorable view of Biden (42 percent).
This, in a nutshell, is why Biden's net favorability rating of -15 points and Trump's -10 doesn't necessarily spell doom for Biden. Candidates with higher net favorability do not always win elections. Especially when both candidates are trailing, you need to consider how vehemently disaffected voters dislike that candidate.
G. Elliott Morris contributed to the research.
footnote
*As of 9:00 a.m. Eastern time on April 1st.
**Based on all preference votes collected in our database. For older election cycles, the database is not comprehensive and it is very likely that some polls are missing. However, sufficient quantities are still collected to generate an average value.
***The same principle applies in reverse, in elections where both candidates are popular. If it happens again, I might write about it outside of a footnote.
