Picking up where we left off last week, a new NBC News poll of the 2024 election finds former President Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden by two points nationally -- the latest in a flurry of mostly positive polling data for the presumptive Republican nominee. Like the recent New York Times survey, the incumbent has gained some ground on Trump in the NBC data set, but he still trails. An interesting wrinkle in the NBC numbers is something that we saw in Fox's polling of four critical swing states released last week. The political conventional wisdom holds that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s independent campaign poses more of a threat to Biden's campaign than Trump's. But in the Fox results, RFK's presence on the ballot slightly benefited Biden in two of the four states, with the other two cutting the other way. So the 'who benefits?' calculus is not as clear-cut as many seem to think it is.
NBC's top lines underscore this point further:
Our poll also finds RFK Jr.'s candidacy hurting Trump more than Biden, which contrasts with other polling https://t.co/QfQB1p2dAy pic.twitter.com/Vw4uVYqdy9
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) April 21, 2024
Trump is up by two points in the head-to-head, 46 percent to 44 percent -- but with other named candidates in the fray, Biden bumps out a 39-37 edge, with RFK pulling 13 percent. Granted, Trump would likely still be in a strong position to win the election if he loses the 'popular' vote by a point or two, but those shifts are interesting nevertheless. If more polls continue to show Kennedy pulling more from Trump than Biden, will the Democrats' pitbull attorneys stop suing to keep him off ballots, in the name of "democracy"? Meanwhile, I beat the drum on my recent polling obsession during a Fox News Sunday appearance over the weekend:
My polling analysis from today’s @FoxNewsSunday panel: pic.twitter.com/PYAGlmp87F
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 21, 2024
Yes, as I've been writing about quite a lot, Trump has a large advantage among people who don't reliably (or ever) turn out and vote. The NBC poll fortified this dynamic even further:
More data showing Trump needs a lot of unreliable/low-propensity voters to win. It requires organization, professionalism and resources to identify, reach, and turn these people out. That’s not the GOP/Trump campaign’s *only* job over the next six months or so, but it’s close. https://t.co/BqmUWqWfS1
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 21, 2024
I'll leave you with some eye-popping margins for Trump on various issues, via Fox's survey of voters in the crucial swing state of Georgia:
Fox News poll of registered voters in Georgia, Biden-Trump on the issues. https://t.co/2ADzqaMpu8 pic.twitter.com/aQAWqU7Prr
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 21, 2024
Trump is statistically tied with Biden on election integrity, healthcare and abortion. He leads Biden by eight points on energy policy, 15 points on foreign policy, and even wider margins on immigration and the economy. If this snapshot reflects the mood of the Georgia electorate in November, the 45th president will almost certainly flip the state back into his column -- quite possible en route to another overall victory. But can he turn out the voters he needs? Democrats will throw huge effort and resources at banking their votes.