Study shows Republican-leaning independents may be key to Trump's triumph over Biden

The most recent national polls show, in unison, that Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the general favorites in their respective parties, are tied in a hypothetical showdown in the 2024 general election.

However, there is encouraging data for the former Republican president, according to the most recent study by I&I/TIPP, which interviewed 509 Republican voters from August 30 to September 1.

Trump support keeps growing, despite prosecutions

According to the online poll, Trump is not only maintaining a solid lead over the rest of the GOP candidates (just like Biden in his party) but has also reached his maximum support among Republicans.

Respondents were asked who, if the election were today, who they would vote for. Some 60% said their vote would go to Trump, which exceeds the polling numbers from June, July and August, which were 55%, 53% and 57% respectively.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the second-highest choice for Republicans, at 11 percent, a stark difference with Trump at 49%, representing the largest gap so far.

Only businessman and outsider Vivek Ramaswamy has been able to grow in popularity among the other Republican candidates. Increasing from 1% when he announced his candidacy to 9% today. The rest of the Republican candidates, considered more moderate, remain mostly at one percent except for Mike Pence (6%) and Nikki Hakey (3%).

The study also tested the electability of GOP candidates to determine who had the best chance of defeating Biden in the general election.

Trump led in "electability" with 56% of Republicans, followed by DeSantis (13%) and Ramaswamy (8%).

The impressive thing about these numbers is that former President Trump is achieving better numbers amid several criminal and civil proceedings against him in states such as Georgia, Florida, New York and even Washington D.C., on charges such as election interference, violation of NARA law or misuse of classified files.

The study attributes this phenomenon to the fact that a large part of Republicans think that the pending charges against Trump are part of a political persecution against him. However, the problem, and perhaps one of the few pieces of bad news for the former president, is that in a general election, this perception could change, as the study found that 51% of voters believe that the charges against Trump "seem legitimate and should be pursued", while 39% called the charges "political harassment" or "exaggerated".

Biden has a deteriorated image

Biden, like Trump, can also celebrate a wide lead against potential Democratic candidates, although his gap is much smaller.

According to I&I/TIPP, Biden was endorsed by 38% of the 606 Democrats who responded to the poll.

His closest pursuer in the poll is former First Lady Michelle Obama, who has not even announced or at least suggested a candidacy, at 9%.

Following behind, other potential candidates appear such as Vice President Kamala Harris (7%), socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (6%), Hillary Clinton (5%), and the only official Democratic candidate, activist and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (4%), another outsider who seems much more popular with conservatives than progressives.

The road is paved for Biden to be the Democratic nominee, perhaps the only possibility that that does not happen is a surprise announcement by Michelle Obama, who according to her biographer and some conservative voices, could be a surprise candidate of the Democratic Party for 2024.

Even so, Biden has little to celebrate. According to the study, more and more voters, 56%, think he "probably" accepted bribes from foreign citizens in his time as vice president in exchange for political favors.

In addition, most also think that accepting bribes should be enough to start impeachment proceedings against Biden.

The left-wing media and some Democratic pollsters are also critical of the president.

"This was a catastrophic week for President Joe Biden due in large part to a new CNN poll out on Wednesday," said John Zogby, a Democratic Party pollster. "Not only is overall job approval at 39%, but 58% of those polled said that things are actually worse since he has been in office."

These two data are very worrying for Biden whose image looks increasingly deteriorated, not only because of inflation problems or the border crisis but also because of concerns regarding his age or his aptitude to perform his job responsibilities following strange incidents in front of the press.

What could tip the balance?

While Biden and Trump compete head-to-head in the polls, there is one vote that could tip the balance in favor of the former president: Republican-leaning independents.

The I&I/TIPP study indicates that this group is solidly on the Republican side, with 54% of Republican-leaning independents choosing Trump in the general election compared to 25% who would vote for Joe Biden.

"That's a large enthusiasm gap that will be difficult for Democrats to close," states the study, which also showed how the independent vote was decisive for Trump to beat Clinton in 2016 and Biden to prevail over Trump in 2020.