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The Biden Campaign Won't Like This New Flood of Battleground State Polling

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  February 01, 2024 10:15 AM

A new batch of 2024 polling offers mixed news for Republicans, who appear to be well on their way to nominating Donald Trump for a third consecutive presidential cycle.  Four fresh national polls show either a deadlocked race, or Biden edging out in front of Trump among the national electorate.  We will start with Quinnipiac, which shows Biden hitting 50 percent and leading Trump by six points head-to-head, though that advantage narrows to just two points when third-party candidates are in the mix.  Nikki Haley leads Biden head-to-head by five points, over-performing Trump by 11 net points.  But in a wider field, the less-known Haley falls behind.  

Overall, this is one of Biden's best nationwide surveys in a long time:

The key to Biden being ahead in this data set is his 12-point lead among political independents.  In quite a lot of other polling, Trump is up with independents, a disparity to keep an eye on.  A Yahoo/YouGov poll, meanwhile, shows Trump in front by a single point, 45-44 over Biden.  A separate YouGov survey has it at a one-point race in the other direction, but with Trump ahead with independents by 11 points. That's not the only poll that shows Trump up 11 over Biden within the independents demographic, in stark contrast to Quinnipiac's numbers:

So of those four new national polls, one has Biden ahead by a few points, one is exactly tied, and two show a one-point race.  Where the news is clearly better for Trump is in a Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey of seven crucial battleground states:

Within this data set, the 45th president is up by eight or more points in Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, the first two of which Biden carried in 2020.  He's up five in Michigan and Wisconsin, states he won in 2016, then dropped four years later.  The same is true of Arizona and Pennsylvania, where Trump holds modest three-point leads in this polling array.  When third party candidates are included in the options, Trump's leads hold steady or grow.  Among these swing state voters, the former president holds a commanding advantage on the economy:

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Twenty-point leads on both questions, and the economy (36 percent) is by far the biggest issue on the board, with immigration (13 percent) being a distant second. Biden is in trouble on that matter, too:

By a 32-point margin, battleground voters quite rightly hold Biden responsible for the border crisis.  Head-to-head on issues, Trump is up 22 points on immigration, up 20 on stock market performance, up 18 on the economy, up 15 on 'the cost of everyday goods,' and even up four on labor and unions.  Biden leads in the single digits on climate change, abortion and 'democracy.'  I'll leave you with a sense of how hard Democrats are grasping at straws on certain issues heading toward the general election cycle -- and a major advantage they'll likely have moving forward:

In addition to a big cash advantage, Biden is going to hope economic sentiment, while still deep underwater, continues to improve enough over the next nine months to keep him competitive -- and that his personal likability lead over Trump will also help his chances.  And he may need some help: