Poll: Biden, Trump still neck and neck in Pa.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are running neck and neck in Pennsylvania, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The findings of the Muhlenberg College survey are similar to other polls showing the current and past presidents in a dead heat in a state crucial to both men’s chances of victory next November.

In the poll, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, 42% to 41%.

Mr. Biden’s support comes even as 63% of Pennsylvania voters said he does not deserve re-election, with 28% saying he does. The survey also found that 57% disapprove of his job performance, withjust 34% approving. And 73% said the 81-year-old incumbent is too old to serve another term as president, with 25% saying he’s not.

But all that is offset by the fact that more than twothirds of respondents, 68%, said the 77-year-old Mr. Trump does not have the right temperament to be president. Only 31% said he did.

“A presidential election is not a referendum, it’s a competition between multiple candidates,” said Muhlenberg pollster and political science professor Christopher

Borick. “Therefore their candidate’s liabilities can become your assets. If it was a referendum on President Biden right now, seeing these numbers, his chances would be very low. He still has enormous challenges. But if his competition carries enormous negatives, it becomes consequently competitive.”

When Mr. Biden carried the state in 2020, he received 92% of the Black vote while Mr. Trump received 7%, and 69% of the Hispanic vote to Mr. Trump’s 27%, according to CNN exit polls.

But in the Muhlenberg survey, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by only 52% to 29% among voters of color.

“The trend we found aligns with many others,” Mr. Borick said. “President Biden’s performance among people of color is not at the levels that he saw three years ago or what many other Democrats have received. That’s part of the problem. He’s not resonating the way that other Democrats have.”

The poll found that if the general election were held now, Mr. Biden would defeat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has family roots in Western Pennsylvania, 41% to 39%, but lose the state to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 38% to 33%. Like with Mr. Trump, both gaps are well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

Also in the poll, Gov. Josh Shapiro was in positive territory among the state’s voters, with 51% approving of his job performance and only 21% disapproving.

And voters favored enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution by 52% to 41%. But by 53% to 37%, they favored legal abortions only through 15 weeks.

The survey of 421 registered voters was conducted Nov. 20 to Dec. 13.