Pres­i­dent Joe Biden con­tin­ues to lead Don­ald Trump in a hypo­thet­i­cal (but wide­ly expect­ed) rematch among like­ly Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers with about eleven months to go until bal­lots are mailed out in the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s lat­est statewide sur­vey has found.

52% of 700 like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers sur­veyed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling this week for NPI said they’d back Biden if the elec­tion were being held today, while 38% said they’d back Trump. 11% said they were not sure.

Trump has been dom­i­nant in the body of pub­lic opin­ion research that’s asked Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry vot­ers who they want to be their nom­i­nee in 2024. Oth­er can­di­dates are con­tend­ing for the nom­i­na­tion, but they’re find­ing it hard to get trac­tion. In recent weeks, Mike Pence and Tim Scott have both end­ed their cam­paigns, hav­ing found that Repub­li­can vot­ers aren’t inter­est­ed in their can­di­da­cies. Chris Christie, Ron DeSan­tis, Nik­ki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy are still run­ning, but none looks like they have the strength to beat Trump.

With Democ­rats on track to renom­i­nate Biden and Har­ris, that sets up a sequel to the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, which Democ­rats won with 306 elec­toral votes. (Don­ald Trump does not accept the result and is the first pres­i­dent in Amer­i­can his­to­ry to refuse to will­ing­ly par­tic­i­pate in the peace­ful trans­fer of power.)

Wash­ing­ton is a state that usu­al­ly elects Democ­rats and has sup­port­ed the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee for pres­i­dent for decades, so it’s no sur­prise that Biden is ahead in this poll find­ing. Nev­er­the­less, it’s good to have fresh data indi­cat­ing what the elec­toral land­scape looks like. In June, we found Biden at 53% and Trump at 36%, so their respec­tive elec­toral posi­tions in this state haven’t changed very much. A lot has hap­pened in the coun­try and the world in the last five months, but Wash­ing­ton vot­ers remain com­mit­ted to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

Here’s the exact text of the ques­tions we asked and the responses:

QUESTION: If the 2024 elec­tion for Pres­i­dent were being held today, would you vote for Demo­c­rat Joe Biden or Repub­li­can Don­ald Trump?

ANSWERS:

• Joe Biden: 52%
• Don­ald Trump: 38%
• Not sure: 11%

Our sur­vey of 700 like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, Novem­ber 14th through Wednes­day, Novem­ber 15th, 2023.

The poll uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (42%) and online answers from respon­dents recruit­ed by text (58%).

It was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling (PPP) for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.7% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

NPI and PPP have worked togeth­er for a decade and have a track record of excel­lence, as detailed in this 2022 elec­toral polling recap and this 2020 one.

Insights from our crosstabs

Our crosstabs con­firm that there are sig­nif­i­cant divides with­in the Wash­ing­ton elec­torate with respect to who they sup­port for President.

Biden is sup­port­ed by:

• Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers (87%; Trump has 5%)
• Vot­ers with post­grad­u­ate degrees (68%; Trump has 21%)
• The youngest vot­ers (65% of those ages 18–29; Trump has 16%)
• Vot­ers of col­or (63%; Trump has 23%)
• Female vot­ers (60%; Trump has 31%)
• Vot­ers with four-year col­lege degrees (60%; Trump has 31%)
• Old­er mil­len­ni­als / Gen X (59% of those ages 30 to 45; Trump has 29%)
• Vot­ers with some col­lege, but did not fin­ish (48%; Trump has 39%)
• Vot­ers ages 46 to 65 (47%; Trump has 42%)

Biden leads Trump in all regions of Wash­ing­ton State except for Repub­li­can-friend­ly East­ern or Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton, where Trump has major­i­ty support.

Biden also has sup­port across income brack­ets. His sup­port among low income vot­ers is espe­cial­ly strong. Two-thirds of vot­ers mak­ing less than $30,000 sup­port Biden, as do over three-fifths of those mak­ing over $100,000 a year.

Trump is sup­port­ed by:

• Repub­li­can vot­ers (83%; Biden has 8%)
• Vot­ers with only a high school edu­ca­tion (49%; Biden has 39%)
• Vot­ers with two year col­lege degrees (49%; Biden has 46%)
• Vot­ers old­er than 65 (48%; Biden has 46%)
• Male vot­ers (45%; Biden has 43%)

Biden-Har­ris received 57.97% of the vote in the Ever­green State in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, earn­ing all twelve of Wash­ing­ton’s elec­toral votes.

Trump’s criminal charges and legal problems haven’t hurt his standing with the Republican base, at least not yet

Back in June, I wrote:

The crosstabs from our hypo­thet­i­cal matchups sug­gest the Repub­li­can base still likes Trump, but will they like him more than DeSan­tis next spring, espe­cial­ly as Trump goes on tri­al for his crimes? We shall see, pre­sum­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion is still being con­test­ed at the time we hold our pres­i­den­tial primary.

Since our June sur­vey, more indict­ments have been brought against Trump and he has begun stand­ing tri­al in New York on civ­il fraud charges. That has­n’t dimin­ished his posi­tion with the Repub­li­can base, nor has it neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed his com­pet­i­tive­ness in recent nation­al or bat­tle­ground state polls.

How­ev­er, if Trump is con­vict­ed, polling does sug­gest that would hurt him with gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers in swing states. We are unlike­ly to see much fall­out here in Wash­ing­ton State because Trump sim­ply isn’t com­pet­i­tive with Pres­i­dent Biden.

And unfor­tu­nate­ly for DeSan­tis and oth­er Trump rivals, it does­n’t look like any num­ber of con­vic­tions would cause the Repub­li­can base to break with Trump.