President Joe Biden has opened up a 6-point lead in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up with former President Donald Trump, new polling shows, amid signs of a growing gender gap in support for the two party front-runners.
A new Quinnipiac University national poll found Biden with 50% support among registered voters, ahead of Trump’s 44%.
That’s a shift in the incumbent’s favor from December, when Quinnipiac found the same Biden-Trump hypothetical “too close to call,” with Biden at 47% support and Trump at 46%.
Biden also scored majority support among independents in the latest findings, with 52% support to Trump’s 40%.
The poll additionally found a growing gender gap when it comes to support for the current and former presidents as they each run for a second White House term.
58% of women say they support Biden, up from 53% in December.
At the same time, 53% of men say they support Trump, “largely unchanged” from 51% in December.
“The gender demographic tells a story to keep an eye on. Propelled by female voters in just the past few weeks, the head-to-head tie with Trump morphs into a modest lead for Biden,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in the report.
As the 2024 race heats up, Biden faces a small handful of long-shot challenger bids on the Democratic side — while the GOP race is down to a two-person contest between Trump and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Haley’s hanging on despite calls from many in the party for support to consolidate behind the former president, and she’s leaning into an electability argument, pointing to polling that shows her faring better against Biden than Trump.
And while Biden beat Trump in a one-on-one test, the new Quinnipiac poll found Haley besting the incumbent in a separate hypothetical.
In a Biden-Haley match-up, Haley scored 47% support — a 5-point lead over Biden’s 42%.
“In a head-to-head matchup against Biden, Haley outperforms Trump, thanks to independents,” Malloy said, but he also noted that Haley’s numbers slipped when third-party candidates were added into the hypothetical.
South Carolina‘s Democratic primary takes place this weekend, kicking off the party’s presidential nominating cycle.
Nevada is the next state to vote in the Republican process, followed by South Carolina in late February.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted Jan. 25-26 among 1,650 self-identified registered voters nationwide and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.