A new exclusive Free Press poll of Michigan voters shows former President Donald Trump trailing incumbent President Joe Biden by 7 percentage points in the state, a result sure to be further worrying for Democrats already pressuring Biden to give up reelection.
“It’s only going to increase pressure on Biden to step aside and put in someone else,” said Bernie Pohn, a pollster with EPIC-MRA in Lansing, who conducted the survey of 600 voters for the Free Press and its media partners. “Democrats are in a tough spot.”
The poll showed Trump, who held a rally in Grand Rapids on Saturday night, leading Biden in the head-to-head race 49% to 42%, with 9% saying they would not vote either way or refusing to say, or remaining undecided. In the five-way race, Trump led with 43%, Biden with 36%, independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with 8%, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West with 2% each. Additionally, 9% said they would not vote for president, would choose someone else or were undecided.
Trump leads in every region of Michigan, including the Detroit metropolitan area (defined as Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties and considered the most Democratic region in the state), where he holds a slight but impressive 46%-44% lead over Biden in head-to-head contests and 43%-38% in five-way contests.
Trump’s lead in metro Detroit is a key indicator of how the political winds have shifted for Biden, who beat Trump there 56% to 40% four years ago.
The poll, conducted after Biden’s dismal showing in a late June debate in which he struggled to give coherent answers and following last Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. EPIC-MRA began its survey the same day that Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that left one spectator dead and two seriously injured. Secret Service officers shot and killed the assailant. The poll ended on Wednesday, the third day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump accepted his party’s nomination for the third time.
The findings show that Trump has more than doubled his lead in the key battleground state of Michigan since EPIC-MRA’s last poll, conducted just before the June 27 presidential debate in Atlanta. In the last poll, Trump had a 3-point lead in the head-to-head contest.
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Pone, who has been polling in Michigan for decades, said he couldn’t remember a poll showing a Republican presidential candidate in such a strong position in the state since then-Vice President George H. W. Bush won the presidential election in 1988. Bush was the last Republican to win Michigan before Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by just 0.2 percentage points in 2016.
Biden beat Trump in Michigan by about 3 percentage points on his way to winning the White House four years ago.
The new poll joins recent polls showing growing support for Trump in other battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and casts further doubt on Biden’s chances of reelection amid questions about his age (at 81, he is already the oldest president ever) and mental health. Interestingly, a majority of respondents (52%) believe Biden should step aside and not run, while 36% believe he should remain the Democratic nominee. 12% are undecided.
More than 30 Democrats, including Rep. Hillary Scholten of Grand Rapids, Michigan, have called on Biden to withdraw his candidacy.
The poll showed Democrats were split on whether Biden should step down from office, with 46% saying he should, 43% saying he shouldn’t, and 11% undecided. Independents and Republicans were more confident, with 55% of both groups saying he should step down, 32% saying he shouldn’t, and the rest undecided.
Importantly, 51% of black voters, a key Democratic base, said Biden should remain the candidate, while 39% said he should step down.
According to the poll, 19% think Vice President Kamala Harris should be the nominee to replace Biden if he steps down. Seventeen percent said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 11% said former first lady Michelle Obama. The other five names surveyed — California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — were all in single digits. Twenty percent of respondents named someone else entirely.
The poll does not examine head-to-head matchups between Trump and other Democratic candidates.
Meanwhile, criticism of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results as a threat to democracy, and his criminal indictment and conviction for falsifying business records to hide payments to porn actresses, do not appear to have a negative impact on Trump among voters: 53% of voters say Trump’s legal troubles will not affect their decision in November’s general election.
Forty-seven percent of respondents said they feared Biden continuing as president more than they feared Trump returning, while 43% said they feared Trump returning, 5% said they feared neither, and 5% were undecided or refused to answer.
The poll also found that more voters are holding a favorable view of Trump: 45% have a favorable view of him, while 48% have an unfavorable view. In EPIC-MRA’s previous poll in June, 41% had a favorable view of him and 54% had an unfavorable view.
Biden’s numbers were much worse, with just 36% viewing him favorably and 57% viewing him unfavorably.
Voters unfamiliar with Project 2025 reject EV initiatives
The poll also found Democrats ahead of Biden in at least one subdivision. In the head-to-head race for Michigan’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Holly, seen by many observers as the Democratic front-runner, led former Rep. Mike Rogers of Brighton, the Republican front-runner, 43% to 40%, with 17% undecided.
But in states where Republicans haven’t won a U.S. Senate seat in the past 30 years, those numbers are still within the margin of error.
There were also signs that the Biden campaign’s efforts to whet voters’ appetites by linking Trump to so-called “Project 2025,” a conservative initiative written by former aides and advisers to overturn the federal bureaucracy, have not yet had much success in Michigan: 57% said they knew little or had never heard of Project 2025 before pollsters asked, 27% said they were somewhat familiar with it and just 15% said they were very familiar with it.
After pollsters read a description of some of Project 2025’s recommendations, including lowering corporate taxes, repealing Obamacare and giving the White House more power over Justice Department decisions, 65% of respondents said they disapproved of the program, while just 25% supported it.
But Trump and his campaign have repeatedly said they do not support Project 2025 or intend to implement its recommendations if re-elected.
Meanwhile, 55% of voters disapproved of the Biden administration’s efforts to pressure automakers into building and selling more electric vehicles, what Republicans are calling a “mandate,” while 40% supported it and 5% were undecided.
On those issues, 31% cited inflation and the rising cost of living as their biggest concern, while 17% cited immigration issues along the southern border, both of which are topics Trump and Republicans have used against Biden and Democrats. And on abortion, one of the biggest issues in the 2022 midterm elections, 12% said protecting abortion rights was most important. Democrats have continued to attack Trump and other Republicans on the issue of reproductive rights during this election, but that may have less impact this year in Michigan, where voters overwhelmingly decided to add reproductive rights protections to the state constitution after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision two years ago.
Male, white voters mostly support Trump
The poll showed Biden holding a commanding lead among black voters overall in a five-way race with 64% to Trump’s 11%, with 15% voting for third-party candidates and 10% undecided — lower than the support from those groups that exit polls showed four years ago. Among the majority of white voters, 48% supported Trump, compared with just 33% for Biden and 10% for third-party candidates.
Among various age groups, Biden only won among voters 65 and older, 50% of whom supported him compared with 41% for Trump, 3% for a third-party candidate, and 6% were undecided or refused to say. Support among younger people aged 18-34, considered an important demographic for Democrats, was split 33%-33% between Biden and Trump, with 22% choosing a third party.
Male voters overwhelmingly supported Trump and backed Biden by 47% to 31%. Women backed Biden by 41% to 39%, but that wasn’t enough to overwhelm men’s support for the Republican candidate.
Among Republicans, Trump led with 84% approval rating, but only 3% of those support Biden. Among Democrats, 77% back Biden, while 4% back Trump. Key self-described independents are split with 33% for Trump, 27% for Biden, and 22% for a third party candidate, with much of their support (14%) going to Kennedy. Another 14% were undecided, refused to answer, or said they would vote for another candidate or not vote at all.
Educational disparities persisted in voter choices. Among voters with a high school education or less, 51% supported Trump, 29% supported Biden, 14% supported a third party candidate, and 6% were undecided. Voters with some college or more of a high school education favored Trump over Biden, 44% to 31%. Voters with a college degree supported Biden, 43% to 38%, with 9% favoring a third party candidate.
Contact Todd Spangler at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @tsspangler.
