Majority of veterans support President Trump, according to a new poll

A majority of United States military veterans support President Donald Trump's re-election, according to a new poll conducted by the Military Times.

The military news outlet reported Monday that "about 52% of veterans surveyed said they plan to back Trump (or have already backed him in early voting) in his re-election campaign this year" while about 42% said they have voted or plan to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden instead.

The remainder of respondents were split between voting for third-party candidates and sitting out the election altogether.

The president's strong support among older veterans was the driving force behind his advantage in the poll, as those age 55 and older favored Trump to Biden 59% to 38%. Meanwhile, veterans younger than 55 years old favored Biden.

That age breakdown reiterated results from a previous poll conducted by the Military Times in August of active-duty personnel. That survey found that current military service members favored Biden to Trump 41% to 37%, with 13% saying they would vote third party and 9% planning to skip the election.

The most recent poll, which was conducted October 1-13 and surveyed more than 1,700 veterans, returned the same results as a Morning Consult survey last month of more than 2,700 likely voters in military households. In that survey, respondents also favored Trump to Biden by a margin of 52% to 42%.

The poll results appear to be good news for the president ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Most national and battleground state polling show Trump losing, but it should be noted that the numbers are down for the incumbent in comparison to his margin of victory among veterans in the last election.

Exit surveys in 2016 showed that voting veterans supported Trump over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by a margin of 60% to 34%, according to the national exit poll conducted by Edison Research, as reported by CNN.

Politicos have looked on in keen interest to see if Trump's support among veterans would dip following a report from The Atlantic last month that alleged he mocked veterans who died defending the country as "losers" and suckers."

The report, which was based on claims from four anonymous sources, was forcefully rejected by the president, who blasted it on Twitter as "Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!"

"I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES," he added.