Presidential fight club

Surveys about Donald Trump and fights, the 2010s, Spirit Airlines, abortion pills, and short-form video.

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This week, at a White House event about physical fitness, Donald Trump asked a boy, “You think you could take me in a fight?”

We at YouGov thought that was a striking question, and promptly asked 2,609 Americans whether they thought an eight-year-old boy, a typical American, and themselves could win a physical fight with Trump.

66% of U.S. adults say an average American would beat Trump, while 10% say Trump would win.

On all three questions, Democrats are far less likely than Republicans to say Trump would win. For example, almost all Democrats say they could win a fight with Trump (75%, while only 5% say Trump would win), but Republicans are slightly more likely to say they’d lose than win (33% vs. 39%).

Democrats are more likely to say an eight-year-old boy could beat Trump than Republicans are to think they could beat Trump (54% vs. 33%).

YouGov polling has found men are more likely than women to say they would win contests, such as fights with wild animals, tennis points against Serena Williams, and battles with aviation emergencies. That’s true for a hypothetical fight with Trump, too: 64% of men say they could beat Trump, compared to 47% of women.

But views about fighting Trump vary more with party identification than with gender. 82% of Democratic men and 71% of Democratic women say they could beat Trump — an 11-percentage-point gap. But only 46% of Republican men say they could beat Trump, 36 points lower than the share of Democratic men who say they could win. Republican women are 52 points less likely than Democratic women to say they could win a physical fight with Trump, and only 27 points less likely than Republican men to say so.

In 2024, Americans thought more highly of Trump’s win probability for a hypothetical arm wrestling contest with Joe Biden.

See the full survey about Trump and physical fights.

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Quick takes

• Happiness: 40% of Americans say they are somewhat or much less happy than they were in the 2010s, but 66% say the average American is less happy than they were in the 2010s

• Spirit Airlines: 16% of Americans say they have taken a flight on the now-bankrupt Spirit Airlines

• Abortion pills: 46% of Americans support allowing mail delivery of abortion pills, and 27% oppose it

• Short-form video: 16% of Americans say short-form video is more entertaining to watch than other forms of video, while 20% say it’s less entertaining and 42% say it’s about the same

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Carl Bialik contributed to this newsletter.