The Most Electable, The Least Electable & Reality – Top 3 Takeaways – September 8th, 2023
1. Electability. In 2020 there was one reason above all others that determined why Democrats voted for Joe Biden in the primary. Electability, and most specifically, beating Donald Trump. That was the single biggest motivating factor in determining the vote of Democrat primary voters. Joe Biden consistently polled the best against Donald Trump, so Democrats voted for him in the primaries and here we are. So, here’s the question. And it’s a question I first posed in February. Do you care most about what candidate you identify with most? Do you care most about what they stand for? Do you most care about who you think is the most electable in beating Joe Biden? In 2015 Republicans swept aside the “electability” question (Rubio consistently polled the best in 2016 head-to-head polling) opting instead for someone they most identified with, and thought would fight for those beliefs. It worked in that cycle. The question is if it would again in the upcoming one as well? What’s changed considerably since I first broached the topic of electability in this cycle is seven months, numerous candidates joining the Republican presidential primary race, and 4 arrests with 91 charges brought against the front runner in the race. Also, in February, Florida’s governor hadn’t yet entered the race, but he happened to be polling within twelve points of the former president at the time. It’s proved to be DeSantis’ high point in the cycle thus far. But know what hasn’t changed? The Republican candidate who appears to be the most electable. As I said in February: With DeSantis not having entered the race, Rasmussen hasn’t recently polled on him head-to-head nationally against Biden in 2024. But they have with Trump and Haley. In head-to-head 2024 polling against Joe Biden who do you think performs best? Rasmussen most recently has had Biden+3 against Trump but Haley up four. That’s a seven-point swing towards the right for Nikki out-of-the gate. It’s safe to say Nikki Haley isn’t likely to be a candidate most Republican voters identify the most with or think would be the biggest fighter for their values, however if “electability” were to be the prevailing theme, could she be given more consideration than most might have considered? So that was then. What about now? Because adding poll questions adds cost to polling, and because Trump and DeSantis have been the top two candidates right along, most pollsters only ever ask about head-to-head preferences between those two and President Biden. CNN’s poll just became the first to ask the question of all of the top seven candidates in the Republican primary race. The results were interesting...starting with who appears to be...
2. The least electable. The least electable candidates in a head-to-head race with Biden currently appear to be the two top Trump challengers right now in Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy performed the worst among those sampled with Biden showing a one-point advantage in a hypothetical 2024 election matchup (the only Republican candidate Biden showed a lead over). DeSantis was tied, and all other candidates, including the former president and perhaps future president, were shown with leads. That included Trump with a one-point advantage, Tim Scott, Chris Christie and Mike Pence with 2-point leads over Biden...and then there’s Nikki. Nikki Haley once again is shown to rise above the rest with a stout six-point advantage over Joe Biden in that poll. While Nikki Haley has consistently only been polling as the top choice of 6% of Republican primary voters, what we’ve also consistently seen over the course of seven months now, is that she performs best nationally and somewhat significantly so. In Republican primary circles Nikki got the biggest boost out of the group coming out of the first debate with a doubling of her support. If she had a similar outcome in this month’s debate, she’d position herself alongside DeSantis as a top challenger to Trump – though that’s an awfully big if. Momentum matters in primary races and currently, with Trump maintaining a dominating lead over the field, the only Republican candidate that has shown any of late is Nikki. Could she emerge as a top non-Trump candidate? If the primary concern of non-Trump Republican primary voters is electability, the answer could be yes. But should it prove to be Trump as remains most likely the case...
3. He appears to be electable too. Big wins, which a six-point win nationally for a presidential candidate would be (by comparison Biden beat Trump nationally by 4.5% in 2020), come with coattails for other candidates producing potentially wave election results for a political party. But as we also know Trump consistently outperforms his polls. The RealClearPolitics average of polls on Election Day 2016 showed Clinton with a 3.2% advantage. She won the popular vote by 2.1%. Trump outperformed by 1.1%. The polling story was even more exaggerated in 2020. On Election Day 2020 the RCP average showed Biden with a 7.2% advantage (he won the popular vote by 4.5%). Trump performed 2.7% better than the polls. People made a big deal of Trump outperforming polls in 2016 because he won the election when the polls suggested he’d lose. The fact of the matter is that they were even less representative of the real level of Trump support in 2020. It just wasn’t as big of a story because they said he’d lose, and he did. And that’s where there’s this to consider. The same CNN poll that now shows Trump leading Biden by a point, showed Biden beating Trump by 12 last Election Day. That’s a 13-point turn around by the Republican frontrunner in that particular poll. If that poll is even close to being true, and if Trump’s the GOP nominee, the potential for him to win is not only there... The potential for Trump to win bigly is there. There are many telling contextual questions within the CNN poll. The one that might be the most telling isn’t about any Republican running for president. It’s about the current president. Only 24% of Americans polled said Joe Biden’s policies have improved economic conditions in the country. 58%, the highest yet, now say his policies have worsened economic conditions in the country. All current polls which ask the economic questions show Trump beating Biden on the economy...and Bigly. The economy can change between now and next November (though that may not be good news for Biden), Trump’s legal status may change between now and next November (and Biden’s too for that matter). But unlike most elections, all Americans already have opinions of these two. And that Trump would likely win the rematch today is telling.