Tipsheet

Left-Leaning Data Analysts: Here's a Reality Check for Dems Dismissing Biden's Poor Polling

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  March 05, 2024 10:15 AM

We will soon have lots of Super Tuesday data to pore over, and the overwhelming likelihood is that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden will emerge from this major round of primary balloting with commanding-to-insurmountable leads in their respective nominating contests.  On Sunday we analyzed a huge batch of new national polling, all of which tells roughly the same story: Trump narrowly but unmistakably leads Biden right now -- as the incumbent is widely viewed as both too old for the job, as well as a failure on top issues.  Within his party, the former problem is unique to Biden.  The latter challenge is not, which is why the president's running mate is also deeply unpopular.  As we saw in recent battleground state polls, Vice President Harris is performing even worse against Trump than Biden is:


Some on the Left are raging against the Times, dismissing these numbers, and blasting the unfairness of it all.  They are also feverishly "unskewing" the findings, as more than a few conservatives tried to do in the 2012 cycle.  Many of us remember, painfully, how that turned out. Left-leaning election data gurus Nate Silver and Dave Wasserman are deluging those takes with ice cold water:


They're not arguing that this election is all but over -- eight months is a very long time -- nor are they suggesting that Trump is a lock to over-perform his polling levels in a general election.  They are saying, however, that at this moment, Trump is plainly in the lead, while also noting that he has over-performed national (and state-level) polling in the past.  Yes, dynamics could change.  Yes, Trump could fall behind and lose.  Yes, Biden and Democrats could outperform their polls, as they've done a number of times recently.  It would be naive to confidently argue otherwise.  But the current snapshots on public opinion should be, and simply are, very concerning for the Left.  And again, it's not just about Biden's widely-perceived infirmity.  It's about a prevailing sense that he's a bad president, doing a bad job, pursing bad polices -- and that the country is worse off because of it:


That's why a significant chunk of 2020 Biden supporters have told the New York Times' pollster that they aren't just 'undecided' or perhaps inclined to sit this next election out (which would be a problem unto itself for the Biden campaign); they're flipping over to the challenger and former president:


I'll leave you with this:

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Also, how on earth did this White House -- especially in light of the inflation polling showcased above -- allow the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (with whom I'm affiliated) to buy the url for Bidenomics.com?  At the very least, they should have figured out a way to lock it down to prevent opponents from accessing it and further exploiting damaging public sentiment. They didn't: