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CNN's New 2024 Poll Just Ruined CNN's Weekend

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  April 29, 2024 10:05 AM

Imagine being one of CNN's aggressively, openly 'progressive,' anti-Trump opinion hosts -- the network claims they don't have those, by the way, only 'news' anchors -- and you'd been having yourself a pretty great weekend.  You clapped and laughed your way through a White House Correspondents Dinner at which the featured comedian somehow managed to win you over by, um, mocking the people you dislike and praising your party's president as a "decent" man who is working to restore abortion. Yes, Colin, thank you. The glitzy event (happy nerd prom, fam!) was bookended by fancy parties celebrating, well, you.  And your courage.  And your duty, as a facts-first firefighter.  What a thrill.  

Even better, all week long, you'd helped preside over orgasmic coverage of Donald Trump's garbage trial (presided over by a literal Biden donor) in New York, breathlessly narrating each banal development like a child on Christmas morning.  Your company had been listlessly drifting through the post-Trump years, slumping badly in the ratings, lacking a clear opponent, passion or purpose.  But the Orange Man is back, baby, as a criminal defendant, no less.  Life is good.  Sure, he's running for president, but he's on trial for eighteen thousand "felonies" or whatever, so you've been journalisming to help bury him in the court of public opinion.  The magic was stirring once again.  All was right in the world.  

And then the new CNN poll dropped on Sunday morning:

This survey is, simply put, a horror show for the anti-Trump, pro-Biden media entity whose polling team produced it.  The former president leads the incumbent by six percentage points, outside of the margin of error.  As the tweet above notes, this represents Trump's "largest lead in [the] CNN poll's history."  When a wider field is introduced, Trump's support falls, but Biden's plummets by ten percentage points, resulting in a nine-point Trump lead.  Why?  In general, people see Biden's presidency as a failure, and they look back on Trump's as a success:

Biden is at (-22) on this metric; Trump is at (+11).  More details:

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Negative views of Biden’s work in office have held for much of his presidency. In the new poll, 60% disapprove of his handling of the job and 40% approve, about the same as it’s been in CNN polling for more than a year. Even Biden’s strongest issue approval ratings in the poll are also in negative territory, with 45% approving of his handling of health care policy and 44% approving his handling of student loan debt. Biden’s approval ratings for the economy (34%) and inflation (29%) remain starkly negative, as voters say economic concerns are more important to them when choosing a candidate than they were in each of the past two presidential contests. In the new poll, 65% of registered voters call the economy extremely important to their vote for president, compared with 40% who felt that way in early 2020 and 46% who said the same at roughly this point in 2016. Those voters who say the economy is deeply important break heavily for Trump in a matchup against Biden, 62% to 30%. A broad majority of all Americans, 70%, say economic conditions in the US are poor...

Among the two-thirds of voters who say the economy is 'extremely important' to their vote this fall, Trump leads Biden head to head by 32 points. I'd also like to highlight this item:

Biden is at a dreadful (28/71) on his handling of the Israel/Hamas war. Media will focus on him being deep underwater (19/81) on the issue among young voters, pushing the narrative that he's still seen as too pro-Israel. But he's relatively strong on the issue among partisan Democrats (46/53). Among Republicans and independents, who are much more pro-Israel than the Democratic base at this point, he's at (13/87) and (27/73) respectively.  Biden has pandered hard to the Hamas sympathizers for weeks.  This has earned him approximately zero credit within that crowd.  Meanwhile, normies and Israel supporters are *disgusted* with his handling of the issue.  He's impressing no one.  And Israel's supporters heavily outnumber Israel's haters in America -- despite what he might be seeing and hearing on his favored cable news channels, on social media, and among his hyper-online staff.

Beyond the Israel question, which is not near the top of voters' priorities (except for the deranged 'Genocide Joe' shouters), here is a really key overall number:

Beyond issues, impressions of both candidates remain mostly negative (58% of voters have an unfavorable view of Biden, 55% of Trump), and a narrow majority of voters, 53%, say they are dissatisfied with the candidates they have to choose from in this year’s presidential contest...A sizable 17% of registered voters say they have unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump, and in choosing between the two, they break for Trump, 43% to 31%, with 25% of that group saying they would vote for someone else, skip the contest entirely or just aren’t sure who they would support.

There were quite a few 'double disapprovers' in 2020, too.  They broke heavily for Biden.  If the nearly one-in-five 'double disapprovers' break for Trump this time, Biden is likely in very deep trouble.  Given where the polling stands right now, Democrats are probably very thankful that they have six months left until Election Day.  The landscape for them right now is...dark.  Remember, these are averages:

A new batch of battleground polls demonstrate how tight some of these states are -- each of which Trump barely won in 2016, then Biden barely carried in 2020:

I'll leave you with a reminder that there's a long way to go, and that Democrats have a sizable advantage among surefire voters -- as well as on ballot chasing and banking, which has become the name of the game.  The polls are one thing.  Who ultimately casts ballots is a very different matter.