Former First Lady Michelle Obama is the only hypothetical replacement for President Joe Biden who can beat former President Donald Trump in the 2024 general election, a post-debate poll from Reuters/Ipsos has found. But while survey results show that Obama has the potential to beat Trump by a landslide, the former first lady has expressed no desire to run for office—despite topping the charts in bipartisan popularity.
The poll, conducted over the course of two days after the presidential debate between Biden and Trump last week, found that nearly 60 percent of respondents—including 33 percent of Democrats—believe that Biden should drop out of the race outright. Just 50 percent said the same of Trump.
However, while many agreed that Biden’s age and poor debate performance should cause him to reconsider his reelection bid, most of the proposed replacements failed to draw enough support to score a win for the Democrats.
According to the poll, were the election held today, Trump would handily beat Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshar, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. He would also likely beat California Governor Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris, though by significantly slimmer margins. Harris polled two percentage points higher than Biden, highlighting a major shift even within the president’s own administration.
Of all the Democrats floated as possible replacements for Biden, only Michelle Obama managed to secure a victory—and by quite a considerable margin at that. In a hypothetical matchup between them, Obama pulls in 50 percent support compared to Trump’s 39 percent, with just 4 percent abstaining from the vote.
The poll also found widespread negative opinions for both Trump and Biden, with 42 percent and 38 percent favorability respectively. Meanwhile, 55 percent of the public looks favorably on former First Lady Obama, which beats out all the other possible replacement candidates.
Despite the widespread support for her candidacy, Obama has repeatedly said that she has no plans to run for the presidency. However, according to two anonymous sources who spoke to Axios, the former first lady has expressed frustrations in private regarding the Biden family, specifically with the way they ostracized her friend Kathleen Buhle following her divorce from Hunter Biden.
