Do Voters Believe Party Leaders Reflect Their Moral Values?

Most Democrats believe that President Biden reflects their moral values, and most Republicans say the same of former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll.

A Deseret News/HarrisX poll reveals that 38% of self-described Republican voters think Donald Trump reflects their personal values “a great deal,” while 41% believe Trump reflects their values “some.” On the other side of the aisle, 43% of Democrats think Biden reflects their values “a great deal,” while 41% answered “some.”

The responses to this question, as is so often the case, fell largely along party lines. Although four out of five Republicans said Trump reflects their personal moral values, only about one-third said the same of Biden. The numbers are ever starker when reversed: 84% of Democrats say Biden reflects their values, only 16% of Republicans say the same.

Independents, by contrast, are divided nearly evenly: While about one-third of independents said Biden reflected their personal moral values and another one-third said the same of Trump, a plurality (43% for Trump, 41% for Biden) said the men do not reflect their moral values “at all.”

Apparently, identifying with the moral values of a candidate increases the likelihood of trusting them to do a good job in office. A new ABC News/Ipsos Poll shows that more Republicans trust Trump to do a better job leading the country (82%) than Democrats trust Biden (72%). Among independents, 32% trust Biden, 31% trust Trump, and 37% trust neither.

It is likely that the discrepancy between those Democrats who trust Biden (85%) and those who think Biden would do well through another term (72%) has much to do with Biden’s age. The matter of Biden’s mental acuity has long plagued the Biden campaign, but became next to fatal after a special report called Biden an “elderly man with poor memory.”

Biden’s State of the Union address may have silenced some doubters – roughly 30% of Americans said Biden outperformed their expectations in his speech – but his approval rating remains historically low at 33%. Trump’s approval rating sits at 29%.