The Poll-Seidon Adventure
A half dozens reasons to believe Biden’s upside-down poll numbers will flip
Since he emerged as the favorite for the GOP nomination last fall, Donald Trump has held a narrow but consistent lead over President Joe Biden in poll after poll. Five Thirty Eight’s poll consensus had Trump 2.4 points ahead at the start of March. That lead was down to 1.1 points - 41.1% to 40% on June 15.
Biden supporters can look at those numbers two ways.
If Biden continues to improve at a pace just over 1 point every three months, he’ll have a narrow lead come Election Day.
The fact that a bigot felon who is less and less coy about his plans to scrap the Constitution and install himself as dictator still has a poll lead over an old but amiable and effective president means it’s time to plan that move to Iceland.
Here are six reasons to keep those escape plans (awful pun warning…) on ice. None of them are meant to convey, “Don’t worry, be happy.” But there are good reasons to think Biden is likely to win a close race in November - six of them in fact. In rough order of rising level of importance:
Trump’s conviction in Manhattan and possible trial start in Washington. Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts in the Manhattan business records/election interference case gave Biden a modest bump - 1-4 points - in several polls. I think the verdict’s impact is likely to wane in the coming months. Pundits as distinct as ultra Liberal podcaster Keith Olbermann and former Republican consultant turned anti-Trumper Rick Wilson disagree. They both think a constant drum beat of referring to Trump as a felon will push additional soft voters away this summer. “If you don’t think that the criminality and the convictions against him are useful political tools,” Wilson said on Friday’s Lincoln Project podcast, “I have bridges and golf courses to sell you with the Trump name branded thoroughly on top of them. It’s killing him.”
The main defense of Trump, that the Manhattan case was small potatoes, disappears if Trump goes to trial on the Jan. 6 case in Washington, currently in limbo awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity (and a ruling on a separate case that might throw out two of the four counts against Trump). Even under the most aggressive scheduling, it’s almost impossible for the Jan. 6 trial to begin until fall, which would put it squarely in the time period that Justice Department guidelines call for deferral before an election. Those are guidelines, not laws, so it’s unlikely but conceivable that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan will start the trial before Election Day.
Most polls indicate Biden is doing better with high information voters. There are sizable pockets of voters who tune out politics until a few months before an election. The campaigns and news coverage will turn some of these low-information voters into higher-information voters. That seems more likely to help Biden than Trump.
Two critical sources of Democratic votes - young people and Black men - are testing the waters and considering jumping ship for Trump. I’m not trying to spin this; the many polls showing this are bad news for Biden. But Biden is staying competitive despite the twin exoduses, and it’s even money that substantial numbers of these people will return to Biden by Election Day. It takes a lot to move a major block of voters across the aisle. Trump had some success at this in 2020 with Latino voters, though they still heavily supported Biden. But look at another group.
Poll after poll throughout Trump’s presidency showed a massive loss of support among women voters. As late as mid August 2020, three polls showed Biden destroying Trump among women voters, with a 57%-36% average margin. The widespread belief was that White women voters, who had voted Republican in 15 of the previous 17 elections, were finally turning their backs on Trump. In the end, Biden won the women vote 55%-44%, about the same margin that most competitive Democratic candidates receive, and White women voters chose Trump (by 2-9 points, according to different estimates). Will young voters continue to shun Biden if the Gaza Strip conflict calms or Trump continues to make clear that young Palestinian supporters will get a lot more support from Biden, no matter how frustrated they are with him right now? Will Black men remain Trump-curious as his dog whistles continue to transition into overt racism? Some will; I think most won’t.
Biden has a decent chance to capture a majority of the uncommitted vote. “Undecideds” are a large chunk of polls results right now, as is typical five months before Election Day. Nineteen percent of the Five Thirty Eight consensus hasn’t committed to Trump or Biden. That includes 9.2% who say they’ll vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That number is almost sure to decline, and not just because RFK Jr. is deranged. Polls in 2016 through October regularly had 7%-9% of voters supporting third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein combined. They received just over 4% of the vote. Voters love to date alternative candidates. Come Election Day, they marry the Democrat or Republican.
Trump won in 2016 because a large share of the undecideds throughout the campaign came from Republican-leaning voters who, when push came to shove, stayed with the party, giving Trump a historic October surge in the polls from a double-digit deficit. I don’t expect nearly as dramatic a surge toward Biden, but it seems clear that much of the 19% are 2020 Biden voters who aren’t happy with the economy but can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump. Trump, focused on re-litigating the 2020 election, complaining about his legal woes and promoting conspiracy theories, isn’t pursuing these get-able voters. Biden is.
Speaking of the economy, consumer confidence is in the toilet. The June University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment was 65.6, the third straight monthly decline after surge in early 2024. As I’ve reported, in recent history, only once has the incumbent party won the popular vote with an index below 90. Again, I’m not trying to spin a 65.6 as good news for Biden; it’s terrible news. But …
Biden has managed to stay competitive, even shrink his polling gap, while consumer confidence plunged the past three months. Where is consumer confidence likely to be come November? I think it’s almost certain to be higher. It could easily be 10-15 points higher, which would put it in the range of the one exception to the 90 rule: Barrack Obama’s 2012 re-election. I say this because historically, resistance is stronger than momentum for the index. The sharp decline of the last three months means it’s likely the index will bounce back this summer.
Inflation news likely will affect the index, and after stubbornly resisting decline for several months, inflation seems more likely to drop than rise before Election Day. The Producer Price Index tracking wholesale prices, a leading indicator, is up only 2.2% from a year ago (about 1 point lower than consumer prices). The Washington Post reports ample anecdotal evidence of big box retailers slashing prices on thousands of items, the impact of which is yet to be felt fully in the Consumer Price Index. There is always the chance of a shock to the system - a rekindling of fighting in the Middle East, OPEC sending oil prices higher, a disastrous jobs report. Barring that, people very likely will be feeling better about the economy this fall than they are now.
The lull in political news (both nominations sewn up before primary season began) and Trump’s attendance at the weeks-long Manhattan trial temporarily robbed the Biden campaign of its biggest asset: A megaphone for Trump’s big mouth. Over just the past week, Trump has said on the campaign trail that
He plans another tax cut for the rich.
He plans to deport millions of people.
He plans revenge against his enemies.
He’s thinking about re-instating the draft (that one comes from a Trump cutout).
At least a few voters on the sidelines will start hearing these pearls on a regular basis. Are some people cheering for them? Sure. They’re already in Trump’s corner. How many undecided voters are going to hear these things and flock to Biden?
Trump has a senior moment almost daily, often while whining about his teleprompter (which he used to portray as a crutch for other politicians). At some point, I have to think the evidence-less perception gap that age is an issue for the 81-year-old Biden but not the 78-year-old Trump will shrink, alleviating Biden’s biggest albatross.
Also, the toddler-level attention span of the American voter means tens of millions of people have forgotten the worst of the Trump administration. The best evidence of this is Trump and his surrogates asking the public in recent weeks, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Right wing media are desperately arguing the opposite, but the obvious, unequivocal answer is, “Heck Yes.”
Four years ago, we were in a pandemic-fueled economic collapse. COVID-19 wasn’t Trump’s fault, but it revealed Trump to have no Presidential talents beyond public relations. Trump had no plan, interest or ability to do anything to minimize COVID’s impact, languishing under a pathetic shortage of virus tests and driving up prices of critical equipment and supplies because he left states to compete with each other to buy them. Trump offered nothing but meaningless, rosy predictions (the virus will die out when temperatures rise) and crackpot cures (bleach). It’s maddening that voters have forgotten this pathetic performance. But it’s also an opportunity for Biden on the campaign trail.
So here’s where we stand as summer approaches: Trump has support of about 41% of voters, Biden 40%. The winner will need to get to 48% or so. … Well, Trump still has an advantage in the Electoral College. He won with 46% of the vote in 2016 and might be able to do it again, and that - plus the 2020 results in which Trump beat his consensus poll numbers by 3 or 4 points - are his biggest advantages. But poll biases are not predictable (the 2016 polls weren’t biased; they accurately reflected millions of GOP voters remaining uncertain about Trump until the final weeks of the campaign). And Biden’s poll numbers in swing states aren’t much different from his nationwide numbers, indicating he might not need THAT big an edge in the popular vote to win the Electoral College.
Trump’s ahead by a nose, but the six points above suggest Biden might have a finishing kick in him.