On the heels of a successful State of the Union address last week Joe Biden has some of the best numbers of his Presidency, with almost as many voters (44%) now approving of the job he’s doing as disapprove (47%). Biden leads all of his leading potential Republican opponents for re-election. It’s 47-44 over Ron DeSantis, 49-45 against Donald Trump, 45-39 versus Nikki Haley, and 47-39 matched up with Mike Pence.

The 4 point lead over Trump is notably similar to the 2020 outcome between them and speaks to the political climate being in a relatively similar place to where it has been over the last few years. Of course that still means a close race in the key Electoral College states would be likely in a Biden-Trump rematch, but Biden’s standing has not meaningfully slipped relative to 2020.

Our poll also finds that Democrats would be better off running Biden again than they would be with any of the best known alternatives to him in the party. While Biden has a 4 point advantage over Trump, Pete Buttigieg (46-44) and Elizabeth Warren (48-46) have just 2 point leads and Kamala Harris ties him at 47 in a hypothetical contest. 80% of the people who voted for Biden two years ago still approve of the job he’s doing to only 7% who disapprove. He’s on pretty strong ground with the party base.

Our first look at the 2024 race for the Republicans finds Donald Trump looking like a pretty weak front runner. 42% of primary voters say they’d like him to be their candidate again to 36% for Ron DeSantis and 6% each for Nikki Haley and Mike Pence. But when you ask GOP partisans what they would do if they had to choose between just DeSantis and Trump, DeSantis takes a 43-42 advantage with Trump not making any further gains in his support. There’s a massive educational gap with Trump leading 48-36 among non-college educated voters and DeSantis up 57-31 among those who have degrees.

At this point it’s only DeSantis who can hang with Trump on the Republican side though. Trump leads Pence 65-25 and Haley 61-26 in hypothetical head to heads.

On a less serious note PPP once again tested whether people think Michael Jordan or LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time in the wake of James breaking the all time scoring record last week. And despite that record it’s still not competitive- Jordan wins out 58-15. It was 77-14 in 2015 so James’ success over the last eight years has led to a little more ambiguity on the question but MJ still has the clear advantage.