Yes, The Horror! New polls by The New York Times and Siena College imply that if the 2024 election were held today between the two most likely candidates of the two major parties, President Biden would lose to Donald Trump by margins of 3 to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, five of the so-called “swing states,” with Biden only leading in Michigan. That projects Trump winning at least 300 electoral votes.
Says the Times about its own poll,
Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction. Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions. And while women still favored Mr. Biden, men preferred Mr. Trump by twice as large a margin, reversing the gender advantage that had fueled so many Democratic gains in recent years. Black voters — long a bulwark for Democrats and for Mr. Biden — are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.
Well all righty then! What, if anything, can we glean from this, beginning with the understanding that it’s just a poll, we can’t trust polls or pollsters, and we can’t trust the New York Times or the news media? This poll could have been deliberately manipulated to push Democrats into dumping Biden, or to gull Republicans into nominating Trump, or to scare Democrats out of their deluded back-patting, or to make the GOP foolishly confident. Or the poll itself is just wrong, even today, never mind where things could go by November of 2024. Granted. But let’s suppose it is relatively accurate, arguendo, as lawyers like to say. Then what?
To begin with the good news, the poll shows that Americans aren’t as stupid and gullible as the Axis of Unethical Conduct (the resistance/Democrats/mainstream media) has been assuming them to be. Their ridiculous narrative is that Biden’s administration has been a gleaming success, the economy is thriving, inflation is a mirage, the crime problem is a conservative fantasy, the “border is secure,” President Biden is sharp as a tack, and the party that applauded this…
…is trying to save democracy, not destroy it.
An example cited by the Times: Though Biden’s campaign has run millions of dollars in ads promoting his record (because, you see, the problem is perception and messaging, not actual failure) while Biden continues to tour the country to insist the economy is hunky-dory, Americans, to their credit (if not being morons is a justification for credit) aren’t buying the scam. “Folks, Bidenomics is just another way of saying the American dream!” Biden declared this week in Minnesota. (Sharp as a tack!) Says the Times: “Voters clearly disagree. Only 2 percent of voters said the economy was excellent.” Elsewhere, the Times notes, “[V]oters across all income levels felt that Mr. Biden’s policies had hurt them personally, while they credited Mr. Trump’s policies for helping them.” They feel that way because it’s true.
In short, “It isn’t what it is,” Rationalization #64, the progressive motto for years now, isn’t working. That aspect of the poll may shock Democrats, progressives and the news media whose contempt for the public has been palpable, but it doesn’t shock me, though, I admit, I’ve had my doubts lately. The rest of the conclusions to draw from the poll results are mixed at best.
The polling suggests that much of the public regards the prosecutions of President Trump as political, even though they may dislike him. It suggests that the Nancy Pelosi-Liz Cheney kangaroo court hearings on the so-called “insurrection” at the Capitol were as cynically viewed as they were cynical. It suggests that the idea of jailing powerful political opponents before an election is pinging ethics alarms, as it should.
Looking at the results from the other side, the fact that a man who is being tried for multiple criminal charges, as dubious as some of them are, could prevail in a Presidential poll is profoundly disturbing. Among other things, it shows a further deterioration in the public’s respect for the justice system. Even if that deterioration is justified, it’s a troubling sign.
I must confess that my first thought upon reading the story was, “Wow, now the Democrats are really going to organize to rig the election.” Quotes like this one didn’t assuage that suspicion: Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden’s re-election, said “Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later….We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”
Right: “the work.” Remember that Romney was beaten by a multi-year smear campaign, including the Senate Majority Leader stating that Romney had paid no taxes for years, and the news media covering for multiple Obama administration fiascos and lies, as in the Benghazi reporting. Meanwhile, Obama’s IRS crippled the election activities of the “Tea Party” groups with illegal measures that only were admitted as “mistakes” after the 2012 election. You know: “the work.”
Otherwise, the Biden campaign’s reaction sounds like whistling past the graveyard. Joe Biden is no Barack “First Black President and if you don’t vote for him you’re probably a racist” Obama, and I don’t see how Trump can be smeared any more than he already has been.
One un-shocking note: A generic, unnamed Democrat had an 8-point lead over Trump, a 13-point swing from Biden. Too bad they can’t run that guy.
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Added (1): Ann Althouse, I see, also posted on this polls, and quoted the “top rated” comment at the Times (Ann has time to read the comments, but she’s retired, and I’m not) by a Ric Wedge. You will recognize his takeaway as the exact opposite of mine:
“Honestly any poll that shows a preference for Trump over Biden should be understood as an indictment not of Biden, but of Americans. That after all this time, anything even approaching a majority of voters see Trump as even a remotely sensible option, can no longer be viewed through the lens of a traditional political calculus. This is now a failure of education, of culture, of common sense.”
He obviously is in denial over the very practical and common sense explanations given in the article for why some of those polled came to the conclusions they did. Ann’s amusing snark: “For Trump haters, the answer to everything is ‘an indictment’.” Good one, Ann.
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Added (2): I just read the substack reaction by former Obama aide Dan Pfieffer, hardly an objective observer. He is going with the “messaging and perception” delusion, writing, “Perhaps the simplest explanation of Biden’s political challenges is that he has done a lot of good, popular things, and almost no one knows about them.” Right, Dan, that’s it. The news media is biased in favor of conservatives, and never reports the good things Joe does. “Let’s work to educate people about everything Biden has done to grow the economy, create jobs, and lower costs.” Translation: More propaganda and news media manipulation, please!
Ethics Alarms 
Never fear, Dems, there’s always ballot harvesting.
This depends on absentee ballots. The New York Constitution requires a person to be absent from their home country, ill, or physically disabled to vote by absentee ballots. A proposal to change this failed. Those blanket mail-in ballots in the 2020 and 2022 elections were unconstitutional. A lot of illegal things like that have taken place. The Bridgeport, CT mayoral race is now in turmoil because the primary has been overturned due to ballot harvesting. Apparently, it is illegal in CT and a Democrat accused another Democrat of doing it. I would bet this would invalidate a bunch of the 2020 and 2022 elections there as well.
What would the 2020 election have looked like if the elections had been held legally? I know that question is illegal to ask in Georgia currently, because they had roughly 20,000 illegal ballots counted in the 2020 election.
I have a barrel of salt by my side to use when reading polls. However, one thing I will note is that this poll is of registered voters. The general feedback I have heard for a number of years is that polls of registered voters tend to lean a bit to the Democratic side versus the actual results. Polls of likely voters have been regarded as more accurate.
That said (snorting some salt), pollsters have admitted they have a much more difficult time these past several years in obtaining an accurate sampling of the electorate. And, a lot of them will tend to apply some corrective factors to their results to adjust for what they believe should give a representative picture. How right they are (mainlining some sodium chloride) is anyone’s guess.
Here is Glenn Greenwald’s take.
My take on this poll, though like Mr. Garcia above I am mainlining the NaCl, is that most everyone is upset with Biden’s policies that have ruined our finances, made a mockery of our beliefs, and set us up for WWIII. As a Catholic, I am embarrassed to say we share, in name at least, a religion. As an American, while I’ll defend his right to say what he will, I’m disgusted that his statements are given a public platform and a megaphone.
At no point should this be a validation of Donald Trump. However, most of us do remember how we had money in our wallets and food on our tables under him. His obviously political persecution (oops, I keep misspelling prosecution) as well as the fact that under him, things worked, puts him higher on the cognitive dissonance scale than much of the far left, which seems to be the majority of the Democratic Party today.
This does involve a great deal of dissatisfaction in the branches of Government. I could list issues I have with all three branches, but today the focus is on the executive branch. The fact that the executive branch has these two men as the front runners diminishes my respect for the office. Of course Clinton trashed my respect a great deal, Bush did not restore it, and Obama threw it in the dung heap before we even had to discuss Donald Trump as a President.
Despite Trumps MANY flaws, I know I will vote for him over Biden, unless something drastic changes the landscape. I cannot even imagine what would have me vote for Biden, though I will not discount the possibility entirely as the world seems to take the word never as a challenge. (I once said I would never vote for Donald Trump, for example.). I will have to see the random Democrat running against Trump before I make that decision after how the whole party has veered wildly totalitarian and stupid. I will vote for most random Republicans before Trump, though there is a significant list of Republicans that I hold in nearly as much contempt as I do Trump.
Calling for decent options next year. In fact, I’m calling for a decent government. Bueller?
I was listening last night to my sister discuss this with another member of the local precinct Democratic board. She basically said, what are the problems they see with Biden? I think he’s doing a pretty good job. I would actually encourage this attitude because if you don’t know what the problem is, you can’t fix it.
They also discussed all the horrible and illegal things Trump is planning to do if he gets in again (where have we heard this before?), and how bad Bill Barr was as AJ for slavishly doing every single thing Trump asked him to do. This is what watching MSNBC 24/7 can do to your brain.
I won’t be voting for Trump in the primaries — but if he’s the nominee (especially against Biden), I will vote for him a second time in the general election. It would be a choice between bad and horribly bad.
One thing this poll tells me — if the Republicans manage to nominate someone besides Trump, it could be a historic loss for Biden.
Which attorney general said he was the President’s wingman?
Ooh! Ooh! Call on me!
It is dismaying really. I mean the Dems look on Barr that way, and many Republicans hit on him for standing up to Trump and not doing everything Trump wanted, and not parroting the ‘steal’ propaganda.
As someone once said, you can have your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts. Well, that view is out of favor these days in many circles.
I look at these polls and remember that almost all the mainstream polls seem to overestimate the Democrats by a good 5% or so. Assume this is no different. Now, the battleground states favor Trump by 8-15%, hispanics are dead even, almost 30% of black voters favor Trump and even women are now a dead heat.
I remember years ago when a pollster stated that you could get an accurate view of the American electorate by polling people between 18 and 25 in Columbus, OH. Sure, Ohio State students are an accurate representation of America. When pollsters in the 1970’s and 1980’s said this, they knew they were lying, but they needed to justify their actions. They knew they were giving inaccurate information to sway the electorate (everyone loves a winner). I think as the decades went on, the students of such pollsters became the pollsters and they DIDN’T know these were lies and so they don’t actually know how to conduct a representative poll. It isn’t that they have difficulty doing it, they are incapable of doing it because they were only taught how to skew a poll towards Democrats.
The numbers don’t add up. If blacks and Hispanics are leaving Biden at historic levels, which is what recent polls indicate, then why isn’t any Republican far, far ahead of Biden in all polls?
Jack,
Is it possible that we have a “I can’t vote Republican, but I won’t vote for Biden so I won’t vote at all” messing up the numbers?
Could all the polls be lying? I mean, it can’t be that ALL of the mainstream media is composed of Democratic shills, can it?
Are we still assuming FJB is going to be the nominee?
Now you will be indicted in Georgia. I mean, you can’t believe that all those votes were just faked behind the plywood-covered windows in that building in Detroit after they threw the poll-watchers out. I mean, just because the exact same thing happened in Georgia and Pennsylvania too means nothing.
Just means there are 5 or 6 states that will see this happen.