Battleground Breakdown
Bottom Line: While preparing this week’s Anatomy of a Swing State update I noticed something that has the potential to significantly alter this year’s political landscape. President Biden’s approval rating in individual states. Or, as is most often the case, his disapproval rating. Somewhat remarkably, despite having won 25 states in route to winning the presidential election in 2020, President Biden currently retains a net positive approval rating in only three states as of today. The Biden three are Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont. That’s it. Three small states. What’s more is that Joe Biden’s highest approval rating in any state is only 48% (Hawaii). Historically if a president has a positive approval rating in a state and generally across the country, they will win reelection. Historically, if a president has a negative approval rating within a state and across the country generally, they lose reelection bids. It’s not complicated. It’s really hard for a president to win the votes of voters who disapprove of their performance. Now, the impact of Biden’s broad disapproval is somewhat mitigated in many states by former President Donald Trump having also been disapproved of in each of the states that he lost four years ago. For that reason, it’s not as though Trump would be favored to win 47 states if the election were held today. But what it does mean is that there are potentially far more states that could be in play this cycle than anyone up to this point has realized.
Political polling costs money so political polls are seldom conducted in states that aren’t thought to be competitive (that includes most of the country). That’s why you regularly see presidential polling in swing states but don’t see it from almost any other states. For this exercise what I’m doing is comparing a swing state we do have regular polling conducted in and comparing President Biden’s approval rating in it – to other states that are considered to be “blue states”.
Wisconsin is currently a dead heat with Trump leading Biden by 0.1% in an average of the polls making it a good baseline for this exercise. President Biden’s approval rating is 42% in Wisconsin – with a 52% disapproval rating. Here are all of the states that Joe Biden won four years ago where Biden currently has the same or a lower approval rating than he does in Wisconsin:
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Viriginia and Washington. That’s 16 states worth a total of 165 Electoral College votes. Of the 16 only 5 are considered by most to be swing states and are being polled accordingly. Of those five states Donald Trump is currently showing leads in four of them. What is the likelihood that Trump is at least positioned to be competitive in one of the other eleven states? What this analysis illustrates is that there is likely to be an expanding map of battleground states as we’re under five months from Election Day.