Trump Is the Front-Runner and Biden Is Drifting to Disaster
A new slate of polls has definitively made Donald Trump the favorite. Trump, who has been gaining ground since October, now has a long enough string of winning polls in key states by different pollsters to give him a clear lead over Joe Biden.
Polls and the electorate can be fickle, but what makes Trump a solid favorite is that Biden is beset with a series of challenges for which he has no answers. The Biden administration is adrift, indecisive, and dragged down by the Democratic base.
State of the States
While the national ballot test is not too bad for Biden, American elections are won in the states and Trump has built a durable lead in enough states to win the Electoral College with room to spare. Democrats are celebrating the recent Quinnipiac poll that has Biden up 6 points nationally. But no other poll has shown that kind of lead for Biden since May 2023 (nearly 150 polls ago), plus Trump leads in 15 polls with 4 for Biden and 4 ties since the New Year. At the time of writing this article the RealClearPolitics (RCP) national average has Trump ahead just under 2 points, within a typical poll’s margin of error.
Individual states are another story — and that story is a horror novel for Biden. RCP has Trump leading in 6 out of 7 swing states with an average lead of over 5 points in four states. To put that into context, Trump won states representing 235 electoral votes in 2020. He needs to pick up 35 votes to win. Just holding on in the four states where he has a big lead would mean 272 electoral votes and the win. (READ MORE: Biden’s Suspicious Job Numbers)
North Carolina — Biden’s closest loss in 2020 — is so firmly pro-Trump that it is not really a swing state anymore. A recent Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll has Trump up by 10 points and Biden hasn’t seen any poll that has him ahead in over 6 months. The Tarheel State was Biden’s only real pickup opportunity.
Georgia (16 electoral votes) will likely flip to Trump. Trump’s RCP lead is 7 points and he has led in 10 straight polls. Gaining Georgia puts Trump at 251 electoral votes. Nevada (6 electoral votes) also shows a 7-point RCP lead. Trump has led in 6 straight polls. Nevada would put Trump at 257 electoral votes.
Michigan (15 electoral votes) looked like a longshot for Trump back in September. But he has led in 5 straight polls with Biden last showing a lead in a Nov. 4th poll. Trump’s RCP lead is just over 5 points. Michigan would put Trump over the top with 272 electoral votes. Yet, Trump has a buffer state in Arizona (11 electoral votes). There his RCP lead is 4.5 points, leading in 8 straight polls dating back to Aug. 8.
Trump’s dominance makes Wisconsin and Pennsylvania superfluous, but those states could still swing to Trump. In both, the RCP average is under half a percentage point — essentially tied. But Trump has led in 3 straight polls in Wisconsin. Biden simply cannot afford to lose either state given Trump’s big leads in Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan.
Based purely on the RCP averages, Trump will win with 293 electoral votes. Biden needs to win slight-Trump-leaning Wisconsin, hold on to slight-Biden-leaning Pennsylvania, and claw back Arizona and Michigan.
Fractious Democratic Party Plus Drifting Biden Equals Electoral Disaster
The Democratic Party is a squabbling rabble united on abortion and hating Trump. That sufficed in 2020 and 2022, but it is no longer enough to paper over Democratic divides and an administration without a direction on immigration and national security.
Caught between the progressive open borders crowd, cities struggling with a flood of migrants, and mainstream voters increasingly demanding action, Biden has responded with inaction and excuses. The polling is decidedly against him. Immigration is now the number two issue for independents (and the number one issue for Republicans). Biden’s approval rating on the issue is disastrous with 64 percent of independents disapproving and all demographic groups negative.
When asked if they favored Texas installing razor wire after the Supreme Court ruled against it, independents supported the state 48 to 34 percent (Republicans favored it 77 to 10 percent). Even Hispanics supported razor wire (38 percent to 36 percent). An uncontrolled flood of illegal immigrants has turned Americans against immigration in general; 37 percent think the country is worse off with immigrants while just 31 percent say it is better. Hispanics have flipped too, 32 percent say it is worse off while just 27 percent say it is better off.
The deteriorating international situation is contributing to Biden’s sliding poll numbers. As with immigration, if the administration has any coherent policy, it is not apparent. In responding to the war in Israel, Biden has been caught between the party’s loud progressive activists and the mainstream voters.
Democrats are split — 45 percent believe both sides are committing genocide and sympathy for Israel is at 20 percent while sympathy for Palestinians is at 23 percent. While the administration still supports Israel, it would desperately like to see a cease-fire and have this problem go away. But Team Biden’s ham-handed dealings with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia mean that none of them are interested in helping Biden.
His administration’s fervent pursuit of an understanding with Iran (an embarrassing pipe dream) has made things only worse with the Sunni bloc and Israel. Naturally, every good turn handed over for nothing to Iran has been met with provocations and attacks. Iran can sense weakness and has no compunction about exploiting it. (READ MORE: US Iran Hawks vs. Foreign Policy Realism)
Just 38 percent of respondents to the Economist/YouGov poll agreed that Biden is a “very strong” or “somewhat strong” leader — and those numbers are propped up by Democrats who overwhelming (76 percent) believe Biden is a strong leader. Meanwhile, most independents (74 percent) and Republicans (93 percent) consider Biden “weak” or “somewhat weak.” Trump, wins as a strong leader, 55 percent to 45 percent with majorities in all demographic groups, except Black voters — despite having a disapproval rating of 57 percent.
Trump Is Not Out of the Woods
Trump did nothing to gain his current lead. Team Biden has failed to respond to events and that led to the president’s collapse in the polls. Trump has spent the last few months raging on social media and defending himself in a series of civil court cases.
Trump has not presented any vision for the future. Of late, his acolytes have bashed Taylor Swift and conjured up weird Super Bowl conspiracies. No solutions are coming from Trump, although he hasn’t hesitated to dump on Biden. It is worth noting that the failures of the Biden administration make that strategy appealing.
Trump has yet to top 50 percent in national or swing state polls — except one recent Georgia poll. Nikki Haley continues to do better, gaining a bigger percentage in some polls, but dragging Biden’s percentage down in all polls. Trump’s lead is powered by his opposition to Biden. When Biden’s disapproval rating goes up, Trump’s numbers improve. That might not last.
The biggest issue for Trump is Trump himself. The spotlight has been on Biden and it has not been flattering. In a race that will be decided by voters who will hold their collective noses and vote for the slightly less odious choice, a low profile is the best campaign tactic. (READ MORE: Without the Never-Trump Vote, Trump Can’t Win)
But that’s not Trump. No matter how much it is in his interest, no matter how smart a strategy, staying out of the spotlight is intolerable to Trump. He simply must be the center of attention. He must be the star all the time. That’s not good.
Biden’s approval rating is crashing— it’s now at a staggering negative 14 points, but Trump’s unpopularity with the full electorate is so baked-in that he is still markedly unpopular even in polls where he leads on the ballot test. His favorability rating has not cleared 43 percent since he left office. The recent narrowing is due to his unfavorable rating edging down. Maybe fewer voters dislike Trump in the face of Biden’s fumbles, but they still don’t like him.
The Trump-Biden dynamic has not changed since 2020. It is a race to the bottom where the winner will be the lesser-disliked candidate, and both candidates are engaged in antics that make them less popular by the day.
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