In Marquette's latest poll of Wisconsin voters, a parade of red flags for Biden and Trump

What makes a likely November matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump so hard to handicap is not just that the early polling is close.

In the indispensable battleground of Wisconsin, the two are tied at 49% in a hypothetical general election contest, according to a new poll by the Marquette Law School.

And it’s not just that each of these men has already shown the ability to win the most important electoral battlegrounds.  Trump did it in 2016 and Biden did it in 2020.

What makes the outcome of a likely Biden-Trump race so confounding and hard to predict is that both men have such glaring — almost fatal — political weaknesses.

It makes perfect sense to view each one as unelectable — except against the other.

Both Biden and Trump have such high “negatives” that they can’t win without the votes of lots of people who don’t like them and are loath to support them.

In the new Marquette survey, roughly one in five voters has a negative view of both Biden and Trump.

While these voters would be the deciders in a Biden-Trump matchup, it’s foolish to predict their behavior because they hate their choices. 

The Marquette poll, taken Jan. 24-31, is a parade of red flags for both candidates.

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This may be the most glaring sign of both men’s liabilities: In an alternate general election match-up, Biden trails Trump’s only remaining GOP rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, by 16 points (41% to 57%). That is much bigger than her lead in the same poll last fall.

It’s also an astonishing number in a state as evenly divided as Wisconsin.

It means that Biden is so politically weak in general election terms that in this early, hypothetical snapshot, he is uncompetitive when pitted against a more traditional, non-Trump Republican, and loses independents in a landslide.

It also means that Trump is so politically weak in general election terms that he is running far worse against Biden than his only Republican rival does. Put another way, Trump has virtually no discernible advantage in Wisconsin right now against an incumbent president with awful approval ratings.

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Trump is unable to take full advantage of Biden’s negatives because of his own high negatives. By contrast, as Marquette pollster Charles Franklin notes, Haley’s vote share against Biden (57%) is virtually the same as Biden’s disapproval (58%).  Unlike Trump, she can fully exploit Biden’s unpopularity.

For Joe Biden and Donald Trump, historic disapproval ratings for a Marquette poll

Let’s consider some of the other ugly numbers for the Democratic president and Republican ex-president in this survey of 930 registered voters in Wisconsin, starting with Biden:

• Only 41% of registered voters in Wisconsin approve of the job he is doing and 58% disapprove. Since 2012, Marquette has polled on presidential approval in this state more than 70 times during the Obama, Trump and Biden presidencies. This is the single highest presidential disapproval this survey has ever recorded.

• Biden’s numbers are much worse than other key Wisconsin political figures in his own party.  When it comes to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, 51% approve, 44% disapprove — a net job rating of plus 7. Biden’s net job rating is minus 17 in this poll. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin has a slightly negative rating in this poll (42% view her favorably, 45% view her unfavorably).  But her numbers aren’t nearly as negative as Biden’s.

• Biden badly trails Trump on two central issues — the economy and immigration.

• Voters overwhelmingly think Biden is too old. Among all registered voters, 61% say that “too old to be president” describes Biden “very well,” including 32% of Democrats.

And what about Trump’s vulnerabilities?

• The former president is viewed favorably by 40% and unfavorably by 58% of Wisconsin voters; that is slightly worse than the share who view Biden unfavorably (56%).  Trump’s negative rating is actually a little lower (meaning better) than it was last year. But he still has higher negatives than almost anyone else Marquette has ever asked about.

• Forty-nine percent of voters say the phrase “has behaved corruptly” describes Trump very well and another 18% say it describes him somewhat well.  A majority of voters think he behaved illegally after the 2020 election.

• One in five voters in his own party views Trump unfavorably, and when matched up against Biden, Trump loses an important sliver of GOP voters who think he has behaved illegally.

While Trump appears to be headed comfortably toward the GOP nomination, his performance in the first two contested states, Iowa and New Hampshire, is open to interpretation.

Yes, they were sizable wins. But if you view him as the de facto incumbent in his party, then winning just over 50% of the vote in each state suddenly looks like a bit of a danger sign, especially when it comes to his performance with independents and college-educated voters in those contests.

But here we are, seemingly headed toward a battle over whose weaknesses are weaker, politically speaking. This is not to equate Trump and Biden on their merits. It’s to say that both have huge electability issues, and it’s totally unclear nine months before the election which one has the bigger electability problem.

Future events and developments could easily tip the balance: a significant third-party spoiler candidacy; a health setback for either man; a Trump conviction; economic improvement or decline; more upheaval in the world or on the border.

Some voters still can’t believe this is the general election we will end up with. And many others are dismayed about it.

When Marquette asked Wisconsin voters in this poll how enthusiastic they are about voting in the fall election, just under half (49%) said “very enthusiastic.”

That is far lower than the 70% who said four years ago they were very enthusiastic about voting in the 2020 election.

And it’s one of the lowest measures of enthusiasm this poll has ever captured in any election.

Craig Gilbert provides Wisconsin political analysis as a fellow with Marquette University Law School's Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. Prior to the fellowship, Gilbert reported on politics for 35 years at the Journal Sentinel, the last 25 in its Washington Bureau. His column continues that independent reporting tradition and goes through the established Journal Sentinel editing process.

Follow him on Twitter: @Wisvoter.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette poll delivers a parade of red flags for Biden and Trump