Polling Potpourri---July 5, 2024 Edition

A week has passed since the Biden-Trump debate.

It is unclear what the Biden campaign's strategy was thinking in challenging Donald Trump to the early debate. They cut the deal with CNN bypassing the Debate Commission, picked the moderators and established the rules (length of debate, muted mics etc).

What is clear is that the debate was an unmitigated disaster for Biden.

That is being reflected in the latest polls.

The two latest national polls released by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both show Trump up 6 points on Biden in a head to head match up.

Theses are the numbers in The New York Times poll.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/poll-debate-biden-trump.html

This graphic shows how The Wall Street Journal poll matching Trump and Biden has changed over time.

It is important to remember that in 2020 Joe Biden won the national popular vote by 5 points and still barely won the electoral college vote.

A 10 point swing to Trump is massive when viewed from that perspective.

In that the electoral college vote is all that matters, it is important to look at individual state polls for a better understanding of where the race stands.

State polls taken after the debate offer no better news for Biden.

A New Hampshire poll taken after the debate shows Trump leading Biden by 2 points in that state.

Biden won New Hampshire by 7 points in 2020.

A second poll in New Jersey within a week shows Trump up by 2 points over Biden in that traditional blue state.

Nevada is supposed to be a swing state but a poll conducted in that state after the debate has Trump +10 head to head versus Biden.

It is interesting to look at the internals in that poll and compare them to 2020 whien Biden won by 2 points in Nevada.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/poll-debate-biden-trump.html

Trump is running 39 points ahead of where he was in 2020 with Hispanics!

It does not appear that the open border policy has been a winner for Biden.

Trump has also gained 23 points with Independents and 14 points with Democrats while retaining all of the Republican voters who were with him in 2020 in Nevada.

An internal Democrat poll was leaked after the debate (by someone in the Democrat party that wants Biden to drop out?) that shows Trump with pretty big leads in all of the swing states after the debate. 

More concerning for Democrats is that the polling shows Trump with small leads in New Hampshire, Virginia and New Mexico which were thought to be safe blue states.

The debate by itself seems to have cost Biden about 2 points across the board.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/poll-debate-biden-trump.html

This is what a +6 point popular vote margin for Trump would likely mean insofar as the electoral college vote is concerned.

Note this leaves New Hampshire, Virginia, New Mexico and Maine as toss ups.

For context, Barack Obama had 332 electoral votes in 2012 and 365 in 2008.

The question remains whether Joe Biden is going to drop out of the race in light of these weak polling numbers.

Of course, underlying all of this seems to be a very weak, old man with diminished capabilities.

How old? Consider this fun fact that I came across on X.

80% of voters in The Wall Street Journal poll stated they believe that Biden is too old to run for a second term.

At this point, Biden is adamant that he is staying in the race.

However, he appears to have lost his defenders in the media many of which are now questioning his fitness for office.

Let it not be forgotten that a couple of weeks ago the same people were calling video clips of Biden mumbling, stumbling and wandering around as "cheap fakes" and reporting that Biden was "sharp as a tack."

Credit: https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1806689942287880555/photo/1

Various Democrat political pundits are also off of the Biden train.

I particularly liked the comment of James Carville, who was Bill Clinton's political strategist, on Biden.

Source: https://twitter.com/tylerpager/status/1807097410256081262

That is consistent with what I have been saying for well over a year

I just do not see how Biden will be on the ballot in November.

The latest poll results suggest that to ignore the obvious is a very risky proposition for the Democrats.

Despite the obvious, there have only been a few Democrat officeholders who have thus far been brave enough to ask Biden to drop out.

Keep an eye on whether that changes in coming days. Losing the support of prominent Democrats would sound the death knell on Biden's campaign.

I also believe that a threat of the invocation of the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office might play into this.

If Biden will not voluntarily drop out of the race I can see key Democrats telling Biden that they will declare him unfit and unable to discharge the duties and responsibilities of the Presidency and elevate Kamala Harris.

This would be a nuclear option that would undoubtedly cause Biden to announce he was dropping out of the race in order to save face and the remaining six months of his term.

You can be sure that there are plenty of discussions of various options and alternatives going on behind the scenes and out of public view right now by Democrats on what to do about "the Biden problem".

Democrat CNN political analyst Van Jones confirms the truth on air.

Link: https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1808669930738569521

For a number of reasons, Kamala Harris appears to be the only viable option the Democrats have to replace Biden on the ticket.

You can also be sure that it would be the preferred strategy of the Democrats to be able to remove Biden from office now and let her run as an incumbent.

I have seen mixed polling on whether Kamala improves Democrat chances in November.

A CNN poll performed after the debate shows Trump with a 6 point lead over Biden.

That poll also suggests that Kamala Harris is the best option among other Democrats that might replace Biden. She trails Trump by only 2 points compared to the 6 point deficit the Biden has.

A contrary view on Kamala Harris is reflected in a Daily Mail survey that shows Trump +5 against Biden but seeing that margin expand to +11 points versus Harris.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13593757/president-kamala-harris-biden-replace-poll-trump.html?ico=related-replace

The Daily Mail poll also surveyed voters on a Trump-Michelle Obama race. Trump has the same margin (+5) against Michelle as he does against Biden.

All of the polling points to a Democrat party in panic and beset by chaos.

What I find most interesting is that a year ago all of the political pundits predicted that would be case if the Republicans nominated Donald Trump.

It was said that would create deep divisions in the party that would create insurmountable obstacles to mounting a challenge to Joe Biden in 2024.

That was then...this is now.

Buckle up for an interesting ride to November.