The main emotion that voters have about the anticipated repeat of the presidential race this autumn between President Biden and former President Trump is 'dread,' as indicated by a recent survey.
In the YouGov and Yahoo News poll, most voters chose the most negative emotion when they were asked about their feelings for the rematch.
Dread topped the list with 40 percent of respondents checking it off, the survey found. Meanwhile, 29 percent of respondents chose exhaustion and 21 percent chose depression. The emotion delight only earned 8 percent.
A majority of Americans, 53 percent, chose at least one of the three negative feelings — dread, exhaustion and depression — while just 40 percent chose at least one of the three positive feelings, optimism, excitement and delight.
While it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that voters aren’t thrilled about the two presidential candidates, Yahoo News noted that people are starting to feel less negative about the rematch than they once were.
Trump clinched the delegates needed for the Republican presidential nomination Monday, just hours after Biden also earned enough delegates to receive the Democratic presidential nomination. The two candidates have begun gearing their campaigns toward the general election in what is likely going to be another close race.
Since September, when there were several candidates challenging both Trump and Biden for their respective nominations, exhaustion has fallen by 5 points from 34 percent, according to the survey. Optimism has risen by 6 points from 25 percent, making it the second most selected emotion on the list in the recent poll behind dread.
Among GOP respondents, optimism is the top emotion, the survey found. The survey also found that there is a much greater share of Republican respondents who believe Trump has the best chance of winning: 85 percent of GOP respondents think Trump is the favorite to win, while 65 percent of Democrats believe Biden will earn his second victory.
The survey was conducted March 8-11 among 1,482 voters. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
