The 2024 Trump Train’s in Motion – Top 3 Takeaways – September 26th, 2023
- But wait, there’s more. One day removed from the shock ABC/WaPo poll that was so one-sided in favor of Donald Trump over Joe Biden that the Washington Post moved to discredit their own poll...there was more. As in additional polling which supported the findings in the ABC/WaPo poll. Findings that made the Washington Post’s move to discredit their own poll by saying (their poll is) significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat look that much more foolish. In my 25+ years of covering politics (and in ten or so years as an interested amateur preceding it) I’ve seen and heard just about everything in terms of political spin pertaining to polling results. What I’d never seen until now is a major media publication move to immediately discredit its own poll, which is co-sponsored by another major media outlet, which by the way didn’t sign on to the Post’s perspective of things. So not only is the Washington Post at odds with co-sponsor ABC about their poll with ABC’s statement once again being this: President Joe Biden's job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say they've become worse off under his presidency, three-quarters say he's too old for another term and Donald Trump is looking better in retrospect -- all severe challenges for Biden in his reelection campaign ahead...there’s more. As in the very next poll that was released showing something very similar. On Monday morning the latest The Messenger/HarrisX poll dropped and their survey said...Trump leads Biden by 5. Is it a ten-point lead? No. But is it a “dead heat” as the Washington Post suggested the other polls reflect? No. It’s a margin that’s nearly three times larger than the poll’s stated margin of error at 1.8%. But it’s not just that there’s now two polls which show Trump with sizeable national leads. It’s that...
- There’s a trend. The previous ABC News/Washington Post poll from a month ago showed Trump up 2...now that’s ten. A month ago, The Messenger/HarrisX poll showed Biden up one on Trump. Now that’s a five-point Trump lead. But it doesn’t stop there. Month over month Trump’s gained four-points in the NBC poll, six-points in the Yahoo News poll, two-points in the Morning Consult poll, two-points in the Economist/YouGov poll and five-points in the Fox News poll. In fact, out of the twelve most recent nationally accredited polls there are only three that don’t show the former and perhaps future President of the United States performing better now compared to a month ago. And of those three one shows the same results as a month ago while the other two show Biden performing slightly better against Trump. And so, the point is this. It's clear which polls are the outliers, it’s the three that don’t show support for Trump surging against Biden – much to the chagrin of the Washington Post...it’s not the nine which show Trump surging. The fact of the matter is that Trump has never polled better against Biden in either election cycle than how he’s performing in the polls right now. In the Real Clear Politics average of polls Trump is currently shown with a 1.6% lead over Joe Biden. Those same polls showed Biden with a 7.2% advantage on Election Day 2020. That means the average polling result has moved in favor of Trump by 8.8% since then. Again, Trump’s surge isn’t an outlier, it’s the trend. That’s true if you look back to nearly three years ago – in which literally every poll now shows Trump performing better against Biden than he did then. That’s true if you look back to just a month ago where it’s nine out of 12. What’s unclear is how much of the swing in support has to do with feelings about Trump having changed compared with how much of it has to do with people having rightfully soured on Biden...but with Trump’s polling lead in the GOP primary also the largest it’s been yet, there’s an indication it could be at least a combination of both. And speaking of the GOP primary race... With Trump’s lead continuing to surge. Events like tomorrow’s second GOP debate, absent of not the just GOP front-runner but also the current presidential favorite feel ever smaller. To date the best arguments made by GOP challengers to Trump’s candidacy have been about electability. But if Trump looks electable – which against Joe Biden he currently does – it makes scaling that nearly vertical hill they have to climb to attempt to knock him off, that much steeper. The 2024 Trump train is in motion...even if it will have regular stops at court houses next year. Speaking of the second GOP debate...
- Who’s qualified? After the first Republican presidential debate the standards to make the second stage were raised. The standard to take the stage tomorrow night – a minimum of 50,000 unique donors, a minimum of 3 percent support in two national polls or 3 percent support in one national poll and in two additional polls from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada and a signed loyalty pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee. So, who’s in? Just about everyone who made the stage for the first debate. Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Chris Christie and thanks to a last-minute Trafalgar poll Doug Burgum is in. Of the first debate participants that leaves only Asa Hutchinson on the outside looking in. He’s not qualified for this debate, nor are any of the other ankle bitters who weren’t on the first debate stage. And as for the big dog. He’ll once again sit back and eat (perhaps literally) while the others debate. There’s been no word of a Trump-Tucker counter programming sequel to the second debate as of yet.