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Why Fresh NYT Polling of Six Battleground States Is Nightmare Fuel for Democrats

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  May 14, 2024 10:30 AM

The new week got off to a miserable start for Democrats and the Biden campaign yesterday, as a huge batch of fresh polling from the New York Times and Siena College flashed bright red warning lights for the incumbent's re-election chances.  This polling series showed Trump leading nationally by five points in March, sparking a round of hand-wringing on the Left, but that lead receded to just a single point in the survey published last month.  Would the outfit's polling of key battleground states show a similar tightening?  In short, no -- at least not compared to a series of NYT/Siena numbers from late 2023.  In November, Trump was up in Nevada by 11 points, by six points in Georgia, by four in Arizona, by five in Michigan, and by four in Pennsylvania.  He trailed Joe Biden by two points in Wisconsin.  

Fast forward to May of the election year, and the new data dump is not looking much more promising for Team Blue.  In some respects, it's looking worse:


Looking at 'likely voters,' Trump's advantages have grown in Nevada (now +13), Georgia (+9), and Arizona (+6), while remaining roughly stable in Pennsylvania (+3). Biden has pulled ever so slightly ahead in Michigan, but he's traded that for falling narrowly behind in Wisconsin. Across these six states, Biden leads among female voters by six points, but he's getting clobbered by men, among whom Trump leads by 18 points. That's one hell of a gender gap. Some other notes on demographics via the Times, whose journos must be morose over their own outlet's findings:

The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life...Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely...Only a sliver of Mr. Biden’s supporters — just 13 percent — believe that the president would bring major changes in his second term, while even many of those who dislike Mr. Trump grudgingly acknowledge that he would shake up an unsatisfying status quo...The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency...Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are essentially tied among 18-to-29-year-olds and Hispanic voters, even though each group gave Mr. Biden more than 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump also wins more than 20 percent of Black voters — a tally that would be the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...Mr. Biden’s losses are concentrated among moderate and conservative Democratic-leaning voters, who nonetheless think that the system needs major changes or to be torn down altogether. Mr. Trump wins just 2 percent of Mr. Biden’s “very liberal” 2020 voters...

That last point underscores the thesis of the op/ed we reviewed yesterday by Democratic strategist and pollster Mark Penn, who warned Biden has been too obsessed with his left-wing base, bleeding support elsewhere as a result.  I'm not sure this qualifies as 'good' news for Biden, but at least it's something:


And then whatever the opposite of a silver lining is, these would probably qualify. The wider field isn't kinder to Biden (Trump up 14 in Nevada, nine in Arizona, eight in Georgia, four in Pennsylvania, one in Wisconsin--with Biden up three in Michigan), and the Trump-positive surveys were in the field in the middle of heavy coverage of Trump's garbage criminal trial in New York City:

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Meanwhile, and perhaps relatedly, new findings from Gallup indicate that the overall electorate is leaning more Republican these days:


Democrats had better hope the current (R+7) outcome doesn't remotely reflect public sentiment in November. As a point of reference, this metric was tied in 2022, when the GOP failed to achieve a decisive red wave victory, and favored Democrats by four-to-seven points in the 2016 to 2020 range. This year is shaping up to be more red-tinted, though there's a long way to go, and that might change. Right now, Trump's leads are not translating to Republican challengers in Senate races taking place within these states. GOP candidates (several are still just starting to define themselves and their races) trail their Democratic opponents (three of whom are incumbents) by two in Nevada, four in Arizona, five in Pennsylvania, and nine in Wisconsin.  The numbers are all closer, including three virtual ties, among likely voters.  I'll leave you with a CNN personality sounding the alarm about Biden's chances:


UPDATE - Another one: