Last month, The New York Times/Siena College put out a poll showing that President Joe Biden was losing to former and potentially future President Donald Trump in five of the six swing states that they polled voters in. You could tell it pained them to have to put that one out. More polls from there have since followed also showing Trump leading in key swing states, indicating that support Trump has is likely not a fluke. Tuesday brought the release of another poll from The New York Times/Siena, with some pretty particular angles.
The poll looks to both registered voters and likely voters, with Trump leading with 46 percent to Biden's 44 percent among registered voters, though Biden leads 47 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. Even with RealClearPolitics (RCP) using that Biden lead of 47 percent to 45 percent, Trump is still up overall by +3.0, and he's continued to lead for some time now.
The poll also looked to how Biden receives low marks for his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, especially among young people. That was certainly the takeaway that the outlet took, with headlines such as "How Much Is Biden’s Support of Israel Hurting Him With Young Voters?" and "Poll Finds Wide Disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and Little Room to Shift Gears." Those findings are definitely worth exploring in a future piece.
While Trump was a particularly pro-Israel president, and will likely continue to be if he wins the nomination and the election next year, young people still favor him over Biden. So there's perhaps another reason for that support, separate from those headlines.
Among likely voters, Biden is leading 47 percent to 44 percent among voters ages 18-29. But, among registered voters, Trump is leading 49 percent to 43 percent. Any lead is certainly significant when it comes to a demographic that votes Democratic and was also key to Biden's victory in 2020.
Previous VIP pieces have wondered if the support that young people have shown Trump in other recent polls is really the case, or if perhaps such polls are outliers and thus too good to be true. It looks like this trend could be here to stay, though we'll keep reminding that Trump and the Republican Party cannot afford to get too cocky and so far away from the general election, especially when the parties haven't even picked their nominee yet.
New NYT/Siena poll has Trump currently winning 18-29 year-olds and basically tied with Biden among Hispanics. pic.twitter.com/EVtl64fJ0C
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) December 19, 2023
Here's where the coverage gets peculiar. In that former piece linked above, with coverage from Nate Cohn, there looks to be a downplaying of the support Trump does have:
Biden ahead among likely voters?
Even though he trails among registered voters, Mr. Biden actually leads Mr. Trump in our first measure of the 2024 likely electorate, 47 percent to 45 percent.If you’re a close reader of this newsletter, this might not come completely out of nowhere. Our polls have consistently shown Mr. Biden doing better among highly regular and engaged voters — especially those who voted in the last midterm election. In those polls, the most heavily Republican voters have been those who voted in 2020, but not 2022. It helps explain why Democrats keep doing so well in low-turnout special elections even though they struggle in polls of registered voters or adults.
But in this particular poll, the split isn’t just between midterm and non-midterm voters. It’s between people who voted in the 2020 general election and those who didn’t. Mr. Biden leads by six points among voters who participated in the 2020 election, while Mr. Trump holds an overwhelming 22-point lead among those who did not vote in 2020. In our estimation, needless to say, 2020 nonvoters are less likely to vote in 2024, and that’s why we show Mr. Biden ahead among likely voters.
It’s an intriguing pattern, but there’s good reason for caution here.
For one: Our previous polling hasn’t shown anything this extreme, including our battleground polling conducted eight weeks ago. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but our sample of 2020 nonvoters includes only 296 respondents — a sample that’s too small for any serious conclusions.
For another: The people who voted in 2020 reported backing Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump by 10 points in the 2020 election, 51 percent to 41 percent. In reality, Mr. Biden won by 4.5 points.
There's also the angle of a possible conviction or convictions against Trump. Here's what Cohn has to say:
Now, there’s a good reason respondents might have been less likely to report backing Mr. Trump in our poll: We concluded the substantive portion of the survey with a series of questions about Mr. Trump’s coming legal battles, including whether he committed crimes, whether he’ll be convicted, whether he should go to jail and so on. Then, at the very end of the survey, we asked them how they voted in 2020.
It’s possible these questions about Mr. Trump’s legal problems made his supporters less likely to admit supporting him in the 2020 election. Indeed, registered Republicans with a record of voting in 2020 were three times as likely as Democrats to refuse to tell us whom they supported in the last presidential election. But it’s also possible that our sample really does just contain too many Biden ’20 voters with respect to nonvoters, yielding a lopsided shift in his direction among likely voters.
While the Biden administration certainly looks to be trying its hardest to weapoinize the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the candidate who is currently most likely to be Biden's opponent for the general election, analysis from POLITICO pointed out that a conviction might not save Biden after all. Attorney Alan Dershowitz--a Democrat who has voted against Trump but nevetheless defended him--has also discussed the role a conviction might or might not play in the general election. It's likely that any convictions will be appealed to and could be overtured by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Jewish Insider's Josh Kraushaar highlighted that part in a post from Monday morning, with other users chiming in with their thoughts calling out The New York Times.
Leave it to the brilliant minds at @nytimes to find a creative way to manipulate the truth. Let's face it, our economy is struggling, foreign policy is far from stellar, inflation is hitting hard, and it's hard to ignore the concerns around Hunter's issues. These are real…
— Thomas Gaume (@tgaume) December 19, 2023
Cohn also believes "the plausible explanation" for these young voters supporting Trump over Biden is actually because of Israel and "that opposition to the war itself is probably contributing to Mr. Biden’s unusual weakness among young voters."
He spent a considerable part of his analysis discussing the issue, also writing:
You might think that the young voters with these progressive or even left-wing views would be among the most likely to stick with Mr. Biden. At least for now, that’s not the case. The young Biden ’20 voters with anti-Israel views are the likeliest to report switching to Mr. Trump.
Overall, Mr. Trump is winning 21 percent of young Biden ’20 voters who sympathize more with Palestinians than Israel, while winning 12 percent of other young Biden ’20 voters. In an even more striking sign of defections among his own supporters, Mr. Biden holds just a 64-24 lead among the young Biden ’20 voters who say Israel is intentionally killing civilians, compared with an 84-8 lead among the Biden ’20 voters who don’t think Israel is intentionally killing civilians.
It’s possible that the kinds of young voters opposed to Israel already opposed Mr. Biden back before the war. That can’t be ruled out. But it’s still evidence that opposition to the war itself is probably contributing to Mr. Biden’s unusual weakness among young voters.
As National Review's Jim Geraghty pointed out about such an angle on Tuesday, "The New York Times Misreads Its Own Poll." Not only is the Israel-Hamas war not considered a major issue with overall voters or young voters specifically, he points out, but there are also plenty of other issues for Biden is hurting with voters, including ones that matter more to voters.
"If the Israeli war against Hamas ended tomorrow, Biden’s numbers would still be lousy," Geraghty also reminds readers. What then will The New York Times have to say?
Here's his most fitting point, with original emphasis:
Biden is not trailing Trump because young people are upset with the president’s stance on Israel. This is the answer that certain people at the New York Times want to be true, but not the answer that is true.
Overall, 20 percent of respondents answered that the economy (including jobs and the stock market) was the biggest problem facing the country, and another 14 percent answered, “inflation and the cost of living.” Ten percent said immigration.
The New York Times is not the only one to blame Biden's loss of support among young people on what support he has shown for Israel. Last month's release of an NBC News poll went with such a narrative as well.
After months of polls showing Trump with a lead being dismissed, it's not surprising but definitely significant that this would be the angle that The New York Times would be going with.
That Biden may be leading with likely voters, though not by much, is certainly an opportunity for Trump or whoever else the Republican nominee for 2024 ends up being. And it certainly continues to be a problem for the president and First Lady Jill Biden as they express frustration towards their staff for not doing more to improve these poll numners. This comes as Axios also reported earlier on Tuesday that "Biden is reluctant to accept his 'old age,' aides say." That's all related, given polls continue to show that his age and related issues such as his mental ability don't sit too well with voters.