Record number of Americans dislike both Biden and Trump – poll

The share of ‘double haters’ is the highest since 1988, a survey by the Pew Research Center says

A quarter of Americans hold negative views of both the Republican and Democrat US presidential candidates in the run-up to the November elections, the highest number in at least three decades, according to the poll published by the Pew Research Center on Friday.

According to Pew, 25% of respondents have unfavorable views of both President Joe Biden and his main rival, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. At the same time, 36% of respondents said they have a favorable view of Trump but not Biden, while 34% said the opposite. 

The poll reveals the highest share of ‘double haters’ voters since the 1988 election, and almost twice as high since 2020, when Biden and Trump first ran against each other.

During the 2020 election, the number of Americans that disliked both Trump and Biden was around 13%, Pew said.

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“Increasing negative partisanship is a major factor behind the decline in favorability of major party candidates,” the pollster said in its press release. “Favorability ratings for candidates have become considerably more negative among members of the opposing party than they were a few decades ago.”

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The poll was conducted on May 13-19, before the back-to-back verdicts in high-profile criminal trials of Trump and Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. On May 30, a New York jury found Trump of falsifying business records in an attempt to influence the 2016 election. On June 11, a Delaware jury found Hunter Biden guilty of violating federal gun laws when purchasing a revolver in 2018 while suffering from an addiction to crack cocaine. Both Trump and the younger Biden denied any wrongdoing.

The 2024 presidential election campaign has remained highly contentious, with both leading candidates accusing each other of causing irreparable damage to America and questioning each other’s fitness for office.