Fourteen percent of voters say they dislike both of the leading candidates for president, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, more than four times the number who were dissatisfied with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump last Election Day.
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Biden has a slight lead over Trump, his predecessor and current frontrunner for the Republican nomination, with 49 percent of registered voters saying they'd choose the incumbent and 47 percent siding with Trump, according to the latest poll. Independents favor Trump by an 8-point margin. The race remains virtually unchanged from August and is within the poll's margin of error.
While both candidates have a commanding lead with their respective partisan voters, 51 percent of voters in this poll have a negative impression of Biden and 56 percent dislike Trump.
Voters who dislike both Trump and Biden — “the double haters,” Republican strategist Whit Ayers says — “become a swing voter group” that both parties will spend significant time and money trying to win over.
These voters are more likely to back Trump by a two-to-one margin in the latest poll. Fifty-four percent say they'd back Trump if the election were held today, while 27 percent say they'd choose Biden and 19 percent remain undecided.
That is in line with how voters behaved at the polls in 2020. Exit polling shows that 3 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied with both candidates, and of those 52 percent voted for Trump and 35 for Biden.