New poll reveals Biden’s true challenger: Nikki Haley

A new CNN/SRSS poll finds that current President Joe Biden clearly loses to only one potential GOP presidential candidate: former governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

In a hypothetical matchup between Haley and Biden, Haley pulls in 49% of the vote, while Biden gets 43%. Against other candidates, Biden polls almost evenly. Against former President Donald Trump, the poll shows 46% for Biden and 47% for Trump. He is even with Gov. Ron DeSantis (47% each), and just slightly under former Vice President Mike Pence (46% Pence, 44% Biden), Sen. Tim Scott (46% Scott, 44% Biden), Vivek Ramaswamy (46% Biden, 45% Ramaswamy), and former Gov. Chris Christie (44% Christie, 42% Biden).

Haley’s lead on Biden is the only statistically significant lead. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 points, and among registered voters, the margin of sampling error is 3.6 points. It is 6.0 for Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.

Last month, Politico published a quote from an unnamed senior Democratic strategist close with the Biden campaign. “If they nominate Nikki Haley, we’re in trouble.”

The bad news for Haley is she is currently polling in fourth position among Republican candidates, at 6%, far behind Trump, who is currently sitting at almost 54% among Republican voters.

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Biden facing other troubles

Biden continues to face strong headwinds, the poll finds, from negative overall job ratings, widespread concerns about his age and lack of confidence in him by American voters.

His job approval rating is currently 39%, and 58% of voters say his policies have made economic conditions worse. That’s up from 50% who thought so a year ago. Seventy percent believe things in the country are going badly and just over half (51%) think that government should be doing more.

Biden’s ability to inspire confidence in voters is 28% while only 26% think he has the “stamina and sharpness” to serve as president. Fewer than half of Americans (45%) say they feel that Biden cares about people like them and a third (33%) say they are proud to have him as president.

About two-thirds (67%) of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters believe that Biden will be the party’s nominee, but the same percentage also say the party should nominate someone else.

CNN’s poll also shows that non-white voters support Biden over Trump 58% to 34%, and among independents, Biden leads Trump by 9%.