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- The latest large national polls show Joe Biden's lead over Donald Trump slipping away.
- More voters have qualms about Biden's age than Trump's legal battles.
- Biden's approval rating is shrinking, and Trump leads in several polls of likely voters.
Super Tuesday is over — and with it any real prospect that anyone bar President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will take their parties' nominations.
Trump swept 14 of the 15 states voting in primaries on Tuesday, seeming to dispatch, too, the last hopes of his challenger Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the UN.
Biden, meanwhile, is aiming to rally all the enthusiasm he can muster from voters across the country as he secures his position as the Democratic party's nomination for president.
If recent polling is any indication, he needs all the help he can get.
Four major national polls released this week show former President Donald Trump ahead of Biden, with Trump's lead ranging from two to five points among registered voters.
While the race is tight and the road to November is long, Trump appears to have the upper hand for now. And it's more than overall favorability ratings where he's pulling ahead.
According to a February national survey by Schoen Cooperman Research, 36% of registered voters see 81-year-old Biden's age and reports of apparent cognitive decline as a more serious issue than Trump's ongoing legal battles. Despite the former president facing 91 criminal counts and a slew of civil cases, 33% of surveyed voters say they were more concerned about Trump's ethical conduct, and 22% reported they were equally concerned about both issues.
Last weekend's New York Times/Siena College poll found, across all ages, races, and genders, that voters surveyed felt Trump's policies while in office helped them more, personally, than Biden's have.
Biden's job approval rating, at 42%, is lower compared to his predecessors' at the start of their reelection years, Fox News found, compared to Trump's 45% approval in 2020, Obama's 45% in 2012, and Bush's 53% in 2004.
Recent polling by YouGov and CBS indicates voters look back on the economy under Trump more fondly than they see things going now under Biden, with 65% of surveyed respondents saying the economy was "good" under Trump, compared to just 38% who said they feel the same way today.
CBS also reported Trump beat Biden among voters when surveyed respondents were asked which candidate was more likely to fight for people like them, which candidate has a vision for the country, and how respondents would rate each candidate's presidency.
Trump doesn't lead in every poll — Biden enjoyed a narrowing lead in a February Quinnipiac survey, and Fox News reported that 43% of respondents see Biden as honest and trustworthy, compared to just 36% who say the same of Trump.
But the polls have been wrong before, and that's what Biden is betting on.
"Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win — just like we did in 2020," Politico reported Biden's campaign communications director, Michael Tyler, said in a statement Sunday night.