WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and his leading Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, start the election year in a dead heat as many Americans appear to be unenthusiastic about their choices, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found.
With the state-by-state nominating contest set to kick off with Republican caucuses in Iowa on Monday, 35% percent of respondents in the nationwide survey said they would vote for Biden, the same percentage as said they would vote for Trump.
Nearly one-third of respondents indicated they did not support either candidate. Some 13% said they would not vote, while 9% said they would back another candidate and 8% said they were unsure.
When forced to choose between the two, respondents were equally divided, with 48% supporting each.
The poll found a clear interest in third-party candidates. Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the famed political dynasty who is running as an independent, won the backing of 18% of respondents when he was included as an option. That knocked Biden’s support in a three-way matchup down to 29% and Trump’s support to 30%.
The online, randomized survey of 4,677 U.S. adults was conducted nationwide, not focused on particular early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
But it shows that Biden and Trump start the year as strong favorites for their party’s nomination.
Trump leads his Republican rivals by a margin of more than 37 percentage points, while neither of Biden’s two challengers for the Democratic nomination got more than 2% support from the party’s voters.
The survey reflected the polarized state of U.S. politics, as 76% of Democrats said they would vote for Biden in the Nov. 5 election and 76% of Republicans said they would back Trump.
Independent voters were not enthusiastic about either candidate. Just 17% said they would vote for Trump and 11% said they would back Biden. Meanwhile, 41% of this group said they would not vote at all.
The online randomized poll was conducted Jan. 3 through Jan. 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis