In this increasingly close and competitive presidential election, it's quite possible that the race will come down to key battleground states, making these polls the ones to watch. While President Joe Biden has been gaining in some polls, putting him slightly ahead of or tied with former and potentially future President Donald Trump, it's Trump who has the edge in many of these battleground states.
The release of the latest Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll came out on Wednesday based on seven swing states. Trump leads in six of them, leading for an overall lead of +6, with 49 percent support to Biden's 43 percent. That Biden now has a small edge of +2 in Michigan is significant and worth addressing. But Trump is performing well or even better than he had been.
Trump leads in Arizona by 49-42 percent, 49-43 percent in Georgia, 51-43 percent in Nevada, 51-41 percent in North Carolina, 47-46 percent in Biden's home state of Pennsylvania, and by 48-44 percent in Wisconsin. Biden leads Trump in Michigan by 47-45 percent.
New Bloomberg/Morning Consult battleground state polls: "Biden’s Gains Against Trump Vanish on Deep Economic Pessimism, Poll Shows"https://t.co/Jmph0fHF6Z pic.twitter.com/Y2GaiIeI1j
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) April 24, 2024
Last month, Trump lead Biden by 48-43 percent in Arizona, which means he expanded his lead. Biden gained +1 in Georgia. Trump gained significantly in Nevada, where he previously led Biden by 46-44 percent. He also gained significantly in North Carolina, where he had previously led Biden 49-43 percent. Not only did Trump gain in those states, but Biden lost support. The same goes for Trump now leading in Wisconsin, to a smaller degree. Biden previously led 46-45 percent.
Trump and Biden had previously been tied at 45 percent in Pennsylvania, so they both gained support, Trump just did slightly more so. Further, while Biden gained in Michigan, Trump stayed the same with the support he had, so he at least didn't lose any.
Michigan has also been a state worth watching. It's gone for the Democratic nominee every year since 1992, except when Trump narrowly won in 2016. Biden flipped it back in 2020, though.
This time, though, Biden is looking to appease an anti-Israel and even pro-Hamas base there following the October 7 attacks that Hamas perpetrated against Israel. Earlier this month, calls of "death to America" and "death to Israel," among other concerning chants, took place in Dearborn. Biden won Michigan's Democratic Primary in late February, but 101,000 voters still went "uncommitted" over what support the president has dared to show Israel so far.
If such a lead, narrow though it may be, in such a critical state holds, that not only affects the 2024 election, but says something about the Democratic Party's base and the lengths Biden is willing to go to appeal to them.
But again, the polls are significant with regards to what they said a month ago, specifically when it comes to the responses.
Last month, the headlines focused on how the Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll at the time showed Biden was gaining on Trump in key swing states. But it was worth being skeptical about such gains.
Now, we're seeing headlines from Bloomberg such as "Biden’s Gains Against Trump Vanish on Deep Economic Pessimism, Poll Shows" and "Biden Falters in Poll With Voters Souring on Economic Outlook." Morning Consult also highlighted how "Biden Takes Lead from Trump in Michigan, but Not Other Swing States."
Even at the time, the excitement was premature. Biden was tied in Michigan and his home state of Pennsylvania. He also only led Wisconsin by +1, after Trump previously led there. Trump's back to leading once more.
That the economy does not look good for Biden is nothing new, but it's particularly critical as we get closer to the election, still a little more than six months away. Trump performs well on the economy in the polls, from past polls when he was in office, to how voters now say they remember his presidency, to which candidate voters prefer on the issue.
"President Joe Biden’s recent polling bump in key battleground states has mostly evaporated as a deep current of pessimism about the trajectory of the US economy hurts his standing with voters," the piece on "Deep Economic Pessimism" begins by pointing out.
The poll's very first question asked voters their thoughts on whether or not they thought the economy was going in the "right direction" or "wrong track" in the country as well as in their state and city/town. By 70-30 percent, voters say it's on the "wrong track" in the country, 57-43 percent say so about their state, and voters are split at 50 percent each for their city/town.
Trump also has a double digit lead on who voters trust more to handle the economy, with 51 percent saying they trust him more, compared to the 36 percent who say Biden. Who voters trust on the economy was then broken down by 14 subsections, with Trump leading on all of them except for "Healthcare costs," where Biden led 43-41 percent.
By 52-36 percent, voters said the economy was better off under Trump versus Biden in the country. By 49-35 percent they said it was better off under Biden versus Trump in their state, and by 48-34 percent they said it was better off under Biden versus Trump in their city/town.
By 51-32 percent, voters also said their "personal financial situation" was better under Trump than it has been under Biden.
As the piece goes on to mention:
Those results are largely a return to the previous state of the presidential race, before a strong State of the Union address appeared to power Biden in March to his best showing in the monthly poll since it began in October.
The reversion comes as poll respondents offered a bleak near-term view of the economy, the issue that has consistently registered as their top concern at the ballot box. A majority of swing-state voters see worsening economic conditions in the coming months, with fewer than one in five saying they expect inflation and borrowing costs to be lower by the end of the year. Despite a resilient job market, only 23% of respondents said the employment rate would improve over the same time period.
For undecided voters — a group crucial to Biden’s effort to close the gap with Trump — the share who expect improvement on those economic factors was in the single digits.
“Some of the shine of the State of the Union address has worn off,” said Matt Monday, senior manager of Morning Consult. “People are really tying Bidenomics and their perception of the economy to the inflation rate.”
More than three quarters of poll respondents said the president is responsible for the current performance of the US economy, and nearly half said he was “very responsible.”
Pieces from Bloomberg last month similarly claimed that Biden had had a strong State of the Union address, but as we also addressed at the time, that might be a stretch.
Right after that address, a poll from Yahoo News/YouGov showed that Biden did not receive a boost. In fact, his numbers got worse.
What's really a problem for Biden is how much Arizona voters say they care about the abortion issue, yet it's Trump who still has the edge. The poll was actually conducted just around the time Arizona Supreme Court upheld an abortion law from 1864 that only allowed for an exception to save the life of the mother.
As the article also goes on to mention:
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is counting on social issues, especially abortion, to help energize Democrats.
For the first time in the tracking poll, more than half of swing-state voters said abortion was very important to their vote. The shares of Democrats and independents who characterized the issue that way has increased since March, while the proportion of Republican voters saying that has held steady, a sign the issue is a growing priority for the voters more likely to align with Biden’s views on it.
On April 9, the second day of polling, an Arizona Supreme Court decision upheld a restrictive abortion law from 1864. In that state, abortion is now the most important issue for three in 10 Democratic women, surpassing the economy.
Independent voters in Arizona say they trust Biden over Trump on that issue by 12 percentage points. Among suburban women in the state, it’s a 25-point advantage.
Biden and the rabidly pro-abortion Democratic Party as a whole have been incessantly talking about the issue, even taking to lying about Trump's stance. The presumptive nominee also regarded the Arizona decision upholding the 1864 law as going too far.
Wednesday brought not only this latest release of polls, but also news that the Arizona House had voted to repeal the law, with a 15-week abortion limit remaining in place.
There's also a note on "Voter Disillusionment," which serves as a fitting warning for this election, especially for whichever campaign is celebrating being in the lead at any given time while we're still months away:
The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of registered voters does not take into account how likely respondents are to vote in an election still more than six months away. The 2020 election had the highest turnout of eligible voters in more than a century, but voter disillusionment over a Biden-Trump rematch — with both candidates having high negative ratings — makes participation this time uncertain.
Biden's six-point deficit across the swing states is even wider than that of Democratic congressional candidates, who trail Republicans by two points. That hints that more voters have a sour view of Biden than his party overall.
Those ticket-splitters — voters who say they’ll vote for Trump for president but a Democrat for Congress — are far more pessimistic about the economy than those who split their voters the other way, Biden for president and a Republican for Congress.
The poll surveyed 4,969 registered voters and an overall margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. There were 801 registered voters in Arizona, 802 in Georgia, 708 in Michigan, 450 in Nevada, 703 in North Carolina, 803 in Pennsylvania and 702 in Wisconsin, with the poll being conducted April 8-15.
The margins of error for each state ranged from plus or minus 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin; and 5 percentage points in Nevada.
With these polls included in RealClearPolling's average for swing states, Trump remains leading in all of them except for Pennsylvania, where Biden is up by +0.4
