Biden struggling in Michigan as Trump grabs strong lead, poll shows

President Joe Biden's support is on shaky ground in Michigan, and he trails Republican Donald Trump by 8 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup 10 months before the Nov. 5 election, according to a new statewide poll commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4).

The survey of 600 likely general election voters in the battleground state found only 17% said Biden, the Democratic incumbent, deserved another term leading the country. That number marked a low for a major public officeholder in modern Michigan political history, said Richard Czuba, founder of Lansing-based Glengariff Group, which conducted the poll.

Finley:Poll screams 'Biden can't win'

Likewise, in a potential contest between Biden and Trump, who is facing a historic onslaught of criminal charges, 47% of likely voters said they preferred the Republican, while 39% selected Biden, an 8-point advantage for Trump, according to the survey with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points. In addition, 3% said they would vote for another candidate, and 11% said they were undecided.

Trump's lead over Biden widened to as much as 12 points when voters surveyed were given a list of third-party candidates. Biden, the current president, and Trump, the former president, are widely expected to emerge this year as their parties' nominees.

The Glengariff Group has been conducting polls featuring Trump for The News and WDIV since 2016. The Jan. 2-6 survey was the first time Trump had a lead in Michigan over the likely Democratic nominee prior to an election, Czuba said.

"If I were a Democrat in Michigan, I would be breaking the emergency fire alarms in the White House and demanding to know what the plan is for Michigan," Czuba said. "Because these numbers are very bad for any incumbent of any party."

Asked whether Biden had performed his job well enough to deserve reelection or if it was time to give someone else a chance, 17% said Biden deserved reelection, and 77% wanted a different national leader. Conversely, 33% of the poll's respondents said Trump deserves a second term, while 62% said they would prefer someone else.

The poll's findings are warning signs for Michigan Democrats who've scored a series of political victories over the last six years and have taken control of state government. The numbers arrived as the Michigan Republican Party faces financial turmoil and after Michigan's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, won her reelection campaign in November 2022 by more than 10 percentage points.

The results also came after Trump's campaign attempted to overturn Michigan's 2020 presidential election and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day lawmakers met to count the country's electoral votes.

Biden won Michigan in November 2020 by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, 51%-48%. At a similar point before that election, in January 2020, a Glengariff Group poll for The News and WDIV-TV found Biden, who hadn't yet locked up the Democratic nomination, leading Trump by 7 points.

In 2016, Trump became the first Republican in 28 years to win a presidential election in Michigan. He beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 0.2 percentage points, 48%-47%, or about 10,700 votes. Glengariff Group polls ahead of that vote had shown Trump trailing Clinton.

'Biden is not that'

Trump's support in the new poll — 47% in the head-to-head contest with Biden — was in line with the shares of the vote he secured in the last two presidential elections in Michigan.

Czuba said what's changed is how Michigan voters view Biden, who's now 81 years old and the oldest sitting president in U.S. history.

Three years into his first term, the survey found 29% of participants had a favorable impression of Biden but 58% had an unfavorable impression. The numbers demonstrated a significant drop in support for the Democrat, a former two-term vice president and longtime U.S. senator from Delaware. In September 2020, ahead of the November 2020 election, a similar poll of likely Michigan voters found 43% had a favorable impression of Biden.

Likewise, 50% of participants in the new survey said they "strongly" disapproved of the job Biden is doing as president. Another 11% said they somewhat disapprove for a total disapproval percentage of 61%. Only 35% said they approve of Biden's performance, and 4% didn't offer an answer.

Bennario Chapman, a 29-year-old self-described independent from Muskegon who participated in the poll, said he was open to voting for a Democrat for president, if it was someone like Whitmer. But Chapman said he simply isn't a fan of Biden.

Whitmer is consistent and clearly cares for the community, Chapman said. Biden hasn't produced the results required to be granted a second term, he added. If the race in November is between Biden and Trump, Chapman is leaning in favor of Trump.

“He is who he is. And that’s who he's going to be. I can expect Trump to be Trump," Chapman said. "And I can go for somebody who stands in their own truth. Biden is not that.”

Chapman said he felt Biden was in it for the title.

The top issues

Those who gave Biden negative reviews were asked an open-ended question about why they had an unfavorable opinion of him. The most frequent answers were related to his age, his general level of competence and his mental competence with 41% of the responses connected to those topics.

"It is about how they perceive his fitness for office," Czuba said of the opposition to Biden.

Trump is 77 years old, four years younger than Biden, and the Republican turns 78 in June.

The survey also asked what issue would most influence a participant's vote. The top answer was jobs and the economy, which got 16%. The second most frequent response was the border and immigration, which received 9%. Inflation and the cost of living got 7%. Protecting American democracy, which Biden has made a focal point of his reelection bid, received 4% behind foreign policy (7%) and abortion and women's rights (5%).

Of the participants in the poll, 40% identified as Democrats, 40% said they were Republicans, and 19% described themselves as independents.

Most of them, 86%, were contacted over cellphone to answer questions. The others, 14%, were reached through a landline telephone.

The potential races

Asked if there was a silver lining in the new poll for Michigan Democrats, Adrian Hemond, a Democrat and political consultant based in the state, said there wasn't.

“Unless there is a fundamental change in the dynamics of the election, Donald Trump is going to be president in January next year," Hemond said.

Hemond, CEO and chairman of the Lansing-based firm Grassroots Midwest, said the survey from a well-known and established Michigan pollster should spur an effort by Democrats to reckon with what the findings mean for the future.

Some Democrats argue the weaknesses of Trump, who is facing an array of criminal charges for his efforts to reverse the last presidential election, will be enough to send them to victory this fall, he said.

"The polls all show that you’re losing to him right now," Hemond said of Democrats.

Glengariff Group asked likely Michigan voters if the possibility of Trump being convicted of a crime before the Nov. 5 election would sway their vote. More than 58% of voters said a Trump criminal conviction would have no influence on their vote, while 28% said it would make them less likely to vote for him.

In the head-to-head contest, Trump is beating Biden by 8 points, but the margin expands when other third-party candidates are included, according to the survey. There will likely be other candidates on the ballot in November.

Trump's lead over Biden was 11 percentage points — with Trump at 42%, Biden at 31% — when Green Party candidate Jill Stein (6%), U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who might run (4%) and Libertarian candidate Lars Mapstead (1%) were included in the poll question. In that situation, which tested Manchin as the No Labels candidate, 13% said they were undecided, and 2% said they would vote for another candidate.

In another test that included former Wyoming U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican and Trump critic, as a third-party No Labels option, Trump's lead went to 12 percentage points. Trump got 41%, Biden received 29%, Cheney followed with 8% and Stein 6%. Other candidates got 4%, and 12% were undecided.

In 2016, when Trump narrowly beat Clinton in Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes, Stein got about 51,000 votes or 1.1% as the Green Party candidate, while Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 172,000 votes or 3.6%.

Whitmer, Newsom fare better

There's still a path for a Democratic candidate to find the votes to beat Trump in Michigan, according to the new poll.

In a hypothetical race between Whitmer, the state's Democratic governor, and Trump, Whitmer held a 4-point lead at 49%-45%. In that situation, 1% of the participants said they would vote for someone else, and 5% said they were undecided.

Whitmer is supporting Biden's campaign and has vowed to serve her full four-year term as governor, which would conclude at the end of 2026.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is also not running for president, also did better with Michigan voters against Trump in the poll than Biden did. Trump beat Newsom by 5 points, 45%-40%, with 3% voting for someone else and 13% undecided.

Biden is expected to cruise to the Democratic nomination. The only other Democrats on Michigan's Feb. 27 presidential primary ballot are U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and author Marianne Williamson, a former Metro Detroit resident who also ran for president in 2020.

As for Republicans, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who's seeking the GOP presidential nomination, performed better in the Michigan poll against Biden than Trump did. In a hypothetical race with Biden, Haley got 44% to Biden's 34%, and 15% were undecided with 6% saying they would vote for someone else.

Iowa's caucuses, the first contest in the GOP presidential nomination fight, take place Monday.

Other contenders for the Republican nomination, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, weren't tested in the new Glengariff Group poll.

cmauger@detroitnews.com