Devastating Polling for President Biden and a Historically Significant Shift Towards Trump – Top 3 Takeaways – September 25th, 2023
- Devastating. That’s the only way to view the just dropped ABC Washington Post poll from President Biden’s perspective. It’s devastating. Quoting ABC News’ story covering their most recent polling, it goes like 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. And boom goes the dynamite came to mind, which as an aside, I hadn’t relieved the “boom goes the dynamite experience” in at least a decade. I enjoyed each of the cringe worthy 3 minutes and 54 seconds of what was perhaps the first viral video almost as much as I originally did. In fact, I found myself having to relieve the Flea Market Montgomery experience as well. Ditto. Solid gold. I’m still sad that Flea Market Montgomery is out of business. Anyway, that poll and that summary by a Biden-friendly outlet is nothing short of devastating. Just over two weeks ago the CNN poll, which had been the most devastating up to that point for President Biden, was the one that sent Democrats into a tizzy. As I said then: 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. Well, if that was the case two and a half weeks ago in a poll that’s far more favorable for Biden than the just dropped ABC/WaPo poll...
- Where is the comparison placing us today? When analyzing polls as a one off, I think it’s always important to provide as much context as possible. As I cited in the CNN poll, an important part of the dynamic in understanding the relevance of that particular temperature check in a head-to-head context with Trump, was that the CNN poll oversampled Joe Biden’s national support by 7.5% over the actual results. In other words, a straight up 1-point advantage by Trump in that poll, would equate to an 8.5% advantage if the sampling were the same as it was in 2020. Enter the ABC poll. That might sound have sounded far-fetched at the time but here we are just two and a half weeks later and guess what? The ABC/WaPo poll shows Trump up 9-points over Biden. After the CNN poll I mentioned that it implied Trump might not only win a rematch but that he could do it bigly. Ok, so the 9-point lead by Trump in the ABC poll compares to...get ready for it...that same poll showing Biden over Trump by 10-points in 2020. In other words, that poll over-sampled Biden’s support by 5.5 points back then...meaning...
- We could be talking about a potential double-digit lead at present for Trump over Biden. And in the but wait...there’s more category... ABC provided methodology from this poll. They squared the sample to match the outcome of the 2020 election. As ABC noted...survey respondents who say they voted in 2020 report having supported Biden over Trump by 50-46%, very close to the actual outcome, 51-47%. Independent of other factors that’s huge in this conversation. What ABC measured in their own sample is that there has been a 13.5% shift in the electorate in a hypothetical Biden-Trump rematch. That’s remarkable this day in age. In reality, the results of this, the CNN or other related polls don’t mean much. With an election over a year away it’s nothing more than a view of the possible if we had an election today, which we don’t. But what it does show is that those in the middle who broke for Biden three years ago appear to be breaking hard for Trump as of today if that were a match and the choice. It also indicates a margin of victory which would carry with it the possibility of a wave election down ballot for Republicans. The real-world effect of all of this polling is a likely panic button being pushed by many in the Democrat establishment. The window of time for a credible Democrat challenger to Joe Biden to enter the race is very short now (and btw, if Biden keeps trending this way RFK Jr. may end up proving to be something of a somewhat credible challenger to Biden in a Democrat Primary race). Alabama’s November 10th deadline is the first filing deadline to hit in this cycle for candidates to be on ballots in next year’s primaries. The next six weeks have the potential to become very interesting in Democrat establishment circles. Many have wondered if the establishment would consider throwing Biden overboard. They haven’t yet, but we’re not at the hard deadline yet either. And btw, that November 10th deadline goes for both parties. For those wondering if Glenn Youngkin might attempt to enter the GOP race given the lack of traction of other Trump-challengers to date, Virgina’s Election Day is November 7th. There is time for Youngkin to focus on Virigina’s elections and to make a post-election presidential bid should he choose to. Election season is heating up and Biden’s poll numbers are as cold and falling as fast as snow. The intrigue factor will be high from here for the next several weeks.