Lots of Americans are in denial that Trump will likely be the 2024 GOP nominee
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- Trump leads fellow GOP presidential candidates by nearly 50 percentage points in primary polling.
- Despite this, less than 50% of polled Democratic adults said they think he'll get the nomination.
- Biden's campaign staffers said they think nearly 75% of undecided Democrats feel similarly.
Despite him leading the pack by nearly 50 percentage points in national polling with less than a year to go until the 2024 presidential election, a large proportion of Democratic adults don't actually believe that former President Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee.
According to a recently released poll from YouGov/The Economist conducted between January 7 and 9, only 45% of Democratic-leaning adults think Trump will become the nominee. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ranked second place in the poll, bringing in 8% as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had 7%.
Ultimately, 29% of Democratic adults said they weren't sure who'd earn the nomination.
In a recent CNN report, unnamed Biden campaign advisers echoed a similar point: campaign internal data showed that nearly 75% of undecided Democratic voters don't think Trump will be the GOP's nominee in 2024.
As it currently stands, Trump is ahead of his challengers in the race by 48.3 percentage points even despite having amassed 91 felony charges in 2023 and having skipped each of the GOP debates thus far.
Unless Trump drops out of the race — an unlikely event at this point — he's by far the presumptive GOP nominee. In the event he wins the nomination, Biden's campaign staffers predicted they believe undecided voters will wake up and jump to Biden's side.
With no serious backup plan in place for Biden, the Democratic Party is gambling his campaign's forecasts about the race once Trump becomes nominee are correct.
A Monmouth University poll from late 2023 showed that Biden's approval rating was at the lowest any president had ever been at that point in their presidency.
That, coupled with Trump winning in national head-to-head polls between him and Biden, means that if Biden is going to win, his campaign's predictions to CNN must prove accurate.
The Iowa Caucuses — the GOP's first primary event on the 2024 electoral calendar — begin January 15. Trump currently holds a strong lead over his competitors in Iowa-based polls, but with a severe winter chill forecast for caucus day and Haley rising in the polls, a potential upset or subversion of expectations on Monday could be brewing.
But if everything goes according to polling, well, Trump's road to the GOP nomination may not take long.