Trump leads Biden by FOUR POINTS: Daily Mail poll reveals the president is still trailing his 2024 Republican rival despite multiple visits to swing states while the Donald deals with his legal nightmares

• Trump maintains four-point lead over Biden despite another week of legal fights
• J.L. Partners polled 1000 likely voters to assess the state of the race
• And the results show Biden did not get a bounce from strong State of the Union 

Donald Trump maintains a four-point lead in the latest J.L. Partners/DailyMail.com 2024 poll published Thursday, suggesting President Joe Biden's surge in campaign travel and forceful State of the Union address has failed to win over voters.

It means the former president's lead is unchanged since December.

When 1000 likely voters were asked who they would pick if the election were tomorrow, 39 percent said Biden and 43 percent said they would opt for Trump.

With a margin of error of 3.1 points, it suggests the election will go down to the wire and could be decided by just a few thousand voters in swing states.

Both candidates clinched their parties presumptive nominations on the same day: March 12.

And both saw their overall share of the vote increase by three points since December.

But positive headlines about Biden's State of the Union address—one of the biggest political set-piece events of the year—and a recent flurry of campaign travel has yet to translate into improving poll numbers.

He has visited Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan this month.

Pollster James Johnson, co-founder of J.L. Partners, said the State of the Union may have pleased Beltway commentators but there was little sign it had swayed voters.

'Though he has a more favorable view among those who were already voting for him, few have changed their minds since our last poll and Trump remains on course to win the popular vote,' he said.

'Plenty could change but a combination of a disastrous Biden brand, positive memories of the Trump administration, the dominance of the border issue, and court cases only galvanizing rather that hurting Trump's support means that Trump remains ahead as we move into the second quarter of the year.'

Trump overtook Biden in our election poll in September last year and has maintained a steady lead since then.

Biden won favorable reviews with a combative State of the Union earlier this month, when he referred to 'my predecessor' 13 times without ever using Trump's name.

He attacked him on Russia, reproductive rights, on affordable healthcare, on the border crisis, on gun control, on the January 6 attack, and on his handling of the pandemic in an effort to remind people of the turbulence of the Trump years.

The latest poll shows that Biden is gaining momentum but it has been canceled out so far by a three-point lift for Trump. 

Biden has tried to build on the speech by touring the crucial swing states that will decide the election. 

He was in North Carolina on Tuesday publicising his administration's work on healthcare and on Thursday he is traveling to New York where he will team up with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to tap the city's wealthy donors.

In contrast, Trump is battling multiple criminal cases and civil suits and has struggled to find time to run a conventional campaign. 

When he has not been holed with lawyers at his Mar-a-Lago home or playing golf he has been in court. 

On Monday, he was in New York to hear that a trial stemming from hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels will start on April 15. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges he falsified business records related to reimbursements for a $130,000.

He faces three other sets of criminal charges, yet poll and poll has found that it has not dented his appeal to half the country. In fact, it may even have helped his cause. 

'Well, it could also make me more popular,' he told reporters when asked if he was worried about how a conviction could affect the election, 'because the people know it's a scam.' 

Meanwhile, the general election contest has come into sharper focus since both candidates became their parties' presumptive nominee.

The proportion of voters saying they were undecided or voting for someone else has dropped from 19 percent to eight percent.

And that has given a boost to the independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has risen from four percent to seven percent, making him a potential spoiler in November.

The poll shows he is taking more support from Biden than Trump.