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Battleground Polls Show Bad News for Biden, Shock CNN Host

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  March 25, 2024 6:00 PM

Former and potentially future President Donald Trump currently leads President Joe Biden in the polls, especially in key swing states like Michigan. Despite this trend, it still seems to be a bit of a shock for some in the mainstream media, as they have to face the reality that Trump could very well serve another term.

Throughout Friday, CNN covered the results of its poll in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan, which Biden won in 2020 while Trump won in 2016. The 2024 election is thought to come down to a small group of voters in key states. As a write-up from CNN notes, the polls include "a fairly small but crucial share saying they are open to changing their minds on the race."

Trump and Biden are tied at 46 percent each in Pennsylvania, while Trump leads Biden in Michigan with 50-42 percent, which is well outside the margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania with only 50 percent to Trump's 48.8 percent, despite it being his home state and close to Delaware, where he served as a U.S. senator before becoming Barack Obama's vice president. Biden won Michigan in 2020 with 50.6 percent of the vote to Trump's 47.8 percent. 

It's worth noting that with third party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West on the ballot, the race goes from being a tie between Trump and Biden in Pennsylvania to a statistical tie, though Trump still enjoys slightly more support. Trump receives 40 percent, Biden receives 38 percent, Kennedy receives 16 percent, and West receives 4 percent. 

In Michigan, Trump is still in the lead, albeit with a smaller one, as he has 40 percent to Biden's 34 percent, while Kennedy receives 18 percent and West has 4 percent.

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There's been more focus on Michigan, as Biden is looking less worried about Pennsylvania this time around. Here's what the write-up says about the numbers in Michigan, as well as those voters who are open to changing their minds and could thus decide the election:

...In Michigan, though, women split about evenly, Biden’s margin among voters of color is narrower and he trails Trump by significant margins among independents and young voters. In both states, Biden holds on to about 9 in 10 of his self-described 2020 supporters, while Trump keeps slightly more of his own 2020 voters.

Sizing up their choices in the rematch between Biden and Trump, most voters in both states say they’ve already decided, but about a quarter in each state say they could change their minds between now and the election. That’s more than enough to swing the eventual outcome in these two pivotal states, both of which Biden won by slim margins in 2020.

There’s even more room for movement among a few key subgroups: In Michigan, 45% of independents and 41% of voters younger than 35 say they’re less than solidly decided, and it’s 32% of independents and 34% of younger voters in Pennsylvania.

Voters were asked who they thought would better handle a series of issues. Of the six issues, Trump enjoys an advantage over Biden with most of them. In Michigan, he has a lead over Biden on who voters trust on the economy (55-29 percent), immigration (53-27 percent), "the situation in Gaza and Israel" (44-24 percent, with 31 percent saying neither), and "the US role in world affairs" (44-39 percent). There's a statistical tie when it comes to "Democracy in the US," in that 42 percent prefer Trump and 40 percent prefer Biden, which is particularly embarrassing given how much the president and his reelection campaign have been harping about the supposed threat to democracy Trump poses. Biden leads Trump on "Abortion policies" when it comes to the candidate respondents prefer, 40 to 32 percent, though 28 percent say neither. That issue has been a fixation of the pro-abortion Biden administration and his reelection campaign. 

In Pennsylvania, Trump leads on the economy (49-35 percent), immigration (49-31 percent), Israel (42-31 percent, though 26 percent say neither), and the US role in world affairs (44-39 percent). Biden enjoys a lead on democracy, though it's nevertheless a small one, at 45-40 percent. He leads on abortion with 47-33 percent.

The poll's write-up, however, does not get much into why Biden is so concerned about trailing in Michigan. There is mention of the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza, but only when it comes to how Trump and Biden each fare on a set of issues.

Biden has been desperate to hold onto his far-left base in states like Michigan where voters are angered by what support he has dared to show Israel, our key ally in the Middle East. That support has been slipping, though. Since the poll was released on Friday, the United States on Monday abstained from a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, rather than veto it, thus allowing for it to pass. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the Biden administration and top Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have spoken out against, has since canceled talks with the White House. 

As opponents of the resolution have warned, an immediate ceasefire is a gift to Hamas and could enable them to attack once more. 

While Biden won the Michigan Democratic primary last month and has since earned enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee, over 101,000 voters selected "uncommitted" in the primary in an effort supported by fellow Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents the state's 12th Congressional District.

That voters in Michigan, which includes Dearborn – home to the largest Muslim population in the United States per capita – would favor Trump over Biden by such margins came as quite a shock to CNN host Dana Bash. 

Bash and others on CNN were discussing on Friday afternoon how Biden fares so poorly when it comes to having issues in his favor. "If you look at the Israel, Gaza question, the fact that Trump has a 20-point advantage in Michigan, I mean, the world is upside down," she offered.

CNN Political Director David Chalian chimed in, offering that that's what "probably explains a lot of Joe Biden's troubles in Michigan right now as well," as he brought up the "uncommitted" voters. "We see young voters, independents, people who have been affiliated with this calling for a ceasefire movement, very frustrated with the president and his policies." Adding, "That's clearly partly at play here in Michigan."

While Bash conceded as much, she also pointed out, "It's hard to imagine that Donald Trump will be any more sympathetic to what's going on in Gaza than Joe Biden is," as she and Chalian also acknowledged it has "nothing to do with their actual policy position."

While Trump may not be "any more sympathetic to what's going on in Gaza," he does at least have a much more clear pro-Israel platform from his first term in office. During the Trump administration, the U.S. embassy was opened in Jerusalem and the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with the Middle East and Israel came about.

The poll was conducted in Michigan from March 13-18 with 1,097 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. The poll in Pennsylvania, also conducted March 13-18, surveyed 1,132 registered voters and had a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points. 

RealClearPolling currently has Trump ahead overall in Michigan by +3.7 and in Pennsylvania by +0.5. Thus, this CNN poll for Michigan is not out of the ordinary. 

In another CNN segment from Friday, however, former DNC Chairman Howard Dean claimed that such a poll was "an outlier," and that he wasn't worried, given that the election is still a little over seven months away. He was corrected, however, by host John Berman, who pointed out, "I don't know how much of an outlier this poll – I haven't seen a poll from Michigan that shows President Biden leading there lately." Dean also made some telling points when he went with the exaggerated figures to claim that Biden "is now understanding that when you kill 30,000 women and children, probably, you can't be entirely pro-Israel on this one."

Overall, Trump leads Biden by +1.7, with 46.6. percent to Biden's 44.9 percent, according to RealClearPolling.