- President Biden has long depicted Trump as a major threat to democracy in the US.
- Biden used the argument against the GOP in 2022, with many Democrats later praising the strategy.
- But a new WaPo-George Mason Univ. poll shows that swing-state voters are giving Trump an edge on the issue.
President Joe Biden has staked a major tenet of his reelection campaign on painting former President Donald Trump as one of the biggest political threats to democracy in the US.
It was an issue that Biden played up heavily against the GOP in the 2022 midterms, issuing a stern warning a week before the election where he argued that "democracy is at risk."
"We're often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy," he said at the time. "But this year we are."
Democrats ended up retaining control of the Senate and losing their House majority by a much narrower margin than predicted, with many in the party arguing that Biden's messaging had been a success.
But ahead of the November election, voters in six key swing states gave Trump an advantage on who would be better suited at handling threats to democracy, a reflection of the continued challenges that Biden faces as he seeks a second term in office.
In a survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University among registered voters from mid-April to late May, Trump led Biden 44 percent to 33 percent on the democracy issue. Sixteen percent of respondents indicated that neither candidate had an advantage on defending democracy, and seven percent said that both men were equally able to handle the issue.
Among "deciders," which includes voters that only voted in one of the past two White House contests, are aged 18 to 25, have been registered voters since 2022, or aren't planning to back Biden or Trump in the upcoming election — Trump has a nine-point edge (38% to 29%) over Biden on democracy issues. Nearly a quarter (23%) of "deciders" said that neither candidate was adept at handling the issue, while 10% indicated that both candidates could effectively tackle the issue.
The findings come at a critical stage for the Biden campaign, shortly before a Thursday debate that has the potential to reshape what has been a tight presidential contest between the incumbent and the ex-president.
Biden came into office pledging to be an effective steward of the federal government just days after the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 — where pro-Trump supporters attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
But Republicans have remained overwhelmingly behind Trump since then, with many GOP lawmakers downplaying the January 6 riot and arguing that the ex-president would be a better leader on the world stage.