Last week, we noted that President Joe Biden did not enjoy any serious or measurable polling 'bounce' from a State of the Union Address that his allies breathlessly insisted had been a smashing success. In reality, the president's historically weak standing remained frozen in place, and had even deteriorated in some respects. It's time to add another data point to the pile. A fresh national poll from Ann Selzer and Grinnell College shows former President Donald Trump opening up a substantial lead over the incumbent, outside the margin of error. I emphasize 'national' because Selzer has earned a reputation as the 'gold standard' polling guru of Iowa. Trump leading Biden by seven points in the Hawkeye state wouldn't exactly be earth-shattering, considering that Trump carried Iowa by roughly nine points in both 2016 and 2020. If anything, a seven-point lead might be spun as an under-performance.
But, again, this new margin doesn't arrive in a statewide poll. It's the result of a nationwide survey:
👀👀New national poll from Ann Selzer & Grinnell College: Trump +7.
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) March 20, 2024
Trump lead in RCP Average is 2.1%. https://t.co/QjDgaG8iNI pic.twitter.com/NBUNfmsiYr
Trump leads Biden by 16 percentage points among independent voters in these numbers, with an awful lot of unaffiliated voters also looking elsewhere for options:
Makes sense, since Biden's approval rating among Indies in this poll is just 22%. pic.twitter.com/GD7GE2uQdR
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) March 20, 2024
A big element of Trump's apparent overall advantage is that in retrospect, voters view his job performance as president significantly more favorably than they did while he was in office. Perhaps they're looking at Biden's governance and pining for recent alternatives:
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump handled his job as president?
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 18, 2024
WSJ
Approve 48%
Disapprove 50%
.
Yahoo/YouGov
Approve 51%
Disapprove 48%
.
Harvard/Harris
Approve 57%
Disapprove 41%
.
Suffolk
Approve 49%
Disapprove 47%
AVERAGE: 51-47 (+4) pic.twitter.com/z5122Aoizy
For what it's worth, a number of other pollsters show the race tied, or Biden slightly leading. But as Bevan points out, the Real Clear Politics average shows Trump currently ahead, in the aggregate. As for the key battleground states, new batches of data also point to a Trump lead, basically across the board:
🇺🇲 2024 GE: NPR/Marist College
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 20, 2024
GEORGIA
🟥 Trump 51% (+4)
🟦 Biden 47%
🟥 Trump 45% (+5)
🟦 Biden 40%
🟨 RFK Jr 14%
—
NORTH CAROLINA
🟥 Trump 51% (+3)
🟦 Biden 48%
.
🟥 Trump 46% (+3)
🟦 Biden 43%
🟨 RFK Jr 11%
538: #6 (2.9/3.0) | 3/11-14 | RVshttps://t.co/CHjV6Tcgee pic.twitter.com/f0tP564Fvo
📊 North Carolina GE: NPR/Marist
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 20, 2024
🟥 Trump 51% (+3)
🟦 Biden 48%
🟥 Trump 46% (+3)
🟦 Biden 43%
🟨 RFK Jr 11%
—
Governor
🟦 Stein 49% (+2)
🟥 Robinson 47%
—
Generic Ballot
🟥 GOP 50% (+4)
🟦 DEM 46%
—
Favs
Stein 36-22 (+14)
Robinson 33-36 (-3)
Trump 46-50 (-4)
Biden 41-54 (-13)… pic.twitter.com/1O0moS91YV
🇺🇲 ARIZONA GE: Emerson/The Hill
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 20, 2024
🟥 Trump 48% (+4)
🟦 Biden 44%
With leans
🟥 Trump 52% (+4)
🟦 Biden 48%
—
🟥 Trump 46% (+8)
🟦 Biden 38%
🟨 RFK Jr 7%
🟩 Stein 2%
🟨 West 1%
—
538: #9 (2.9/3.0) | 3/12-15 | 1,000 RV https://t.co/XZGUA7RRwo pic.twitter.com/Wz50dQj0Fm
🇺🇲 NEVADA GE: Emerson/The Hill
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 20, 2024
🟥 Trump 44% (+3)
🟦 Biden 41%
With leans
🟥 Trump 51% (+2)
🟦 Biden 49%
—
🟥 Trump 41% (+5)
🟦 Biden 36%
🟨 RFK Jr 9%
🟩 Stein 2%
🟨 West 1%
—
538: #9 (2.9/3.0) | 3/12-15 | 1,000 RV https://t.co/EFaVVeTRXr pic.twitter.com/VmQuZ1eUqS
These surveys show Trump at or above 50 percent (when leaners are included) in head-to-heads against Biden, and leading by similar margins with other names on the ballot. No wonder Joe Biden is reportedly angry and worried behind the scenes:
President Joe Biden was seething. In a private meeting at the White House in January, allies of the president had just told him that his poll numbers in Michigan and Georgia had dropped over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Both are battleground states he narrowly won four years ago, and he can’t afford any backsliding if he is to once again defeat Donald Trump. He began to shout and swear, a lawmaker familiar with the meeting said...For months, Democrats have watched the 2024 campaign unfold with rising alarm as the sitting president struggles to gain ground against his defeated predecessor. Frustrations rippling through the party have reached the top, with Biden at times second-guessing travel decisions and communications strategies that have left much of the electorate clueless about his record, interviews with nearly 20 lawmakers, present and past administration officials and Biden allies show...History suggests it will be tough for him to recover. Biden’s 38% approval rating at this stage in the calendar is lower than that of the last three presidents who went on to lose re-election: Trump (48%), George H.W. Bush (39%) and Jimmy Carter (43%), according to Gallup survey data.
This is the essence of how the Democrats will seek to present this election to voters over the next seven-plus months:
He meanders from low energy "look forks" to his eventual point: Democrats will frame up this election as a referendum on the challenger, not the incumbent. We'll see if they succeed. https://t.co/SrqTNkApLe
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 20, 2024
I'll leave you with this, from Special Report last evening:
Some state of the race thoughts from last night’s panel: pic.twitter.com/0YSbMBFM6h
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 20, 2024
