Donald Trump would be on track to win a historic landslide in November — if so many US voters didn’t find him personally repugnant.

Roughly 53 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the former president. And yet, when asked about Trump’s ability to handle key issues — or the impact of his policies — voters routinely give the Republican candidate higher marks than President Biden.

In a YouGov survey released this month, Trump boasted an advantage over Biden on 10 of the 15 issues polled. On the three issues that voters routinely name as top priorities — the economy, immigration, and inflation — respondents said that Trump would do a better job by double-digit margins.

Meanwhile, in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 40 percent of voters said that Trump’s policies had helped them personally, while just 18 percent said the same of Biden. If Americans could elect a normal human being with Trump’s reputation for being “tough” on immigration and good at economics, they would almost certainly do so.

Biden is fortunate that voters do not have that option. But to erase Trump’s small but stubborn lead in the polls, the president needs to erode his GOP rival’s advantage on the issues.

  • hemmes@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I was basically going to say the same thing, they’ll vote anyway, party over policy. It doesn’t matter what they propose. As long as Democrats disagree with it, their constituents will vote for it, standard team-driven advertising.

    Most voters don’t care about politics at all, we just want what everyone else wants - a chance at opportunity, some form of health care and social security, you know, the good life. We can all pretty much agree on that and it’s really not that interesting a topic. So, politicians turn politics into a sports game because that’s what people care about and engage with, sports and competition, our old friend, Ego.

    Follow your heart, not your ego.