Polls on battleground states have been kind to former and potentially future President Donald Trump, so far. Of course, there are still several months leading up to the election, and the polls and landscape of the country could change between now and then. As is key to warn, it's crucial for Trump and the Republican Party not to get too cocky, especially as the Biden reelection campaign has turned to gaslighting and even resurrecting debunked falsehoods on the campaign trail. The headlines are starting to change, at least regarding some polls. So, should Trump and his supporters be worried?
Recently, Bloomberg/Morning Consult put out a poll of battleground states. The headlines could hardly contain their excitement. "Biden Gains Ground Against Trump in Six Key States, Poll Shows," read one Bloomberg headline. "Biden Is on a Roll in Key Swing States," read another, this one an opinion piece from Nia-Malika Henderson.
A Morning Consult headline highlights how "Biden Takes Lead from Trump in Wisconsin as 2024 Campaign Kicks Into Gear," though it's worth noting that the subheadline points out how "The incumbent Democrat trails his presumptive Republican challenger in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina."
Where does the race actually stand in these key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin? States that will likely decide the election?
Trump leads Biden 48-43 percent in Arizona, 49-42 percent in Georgia, 46-44 percent in Nevada, and 49-43 percent in North Carolina. Trump and Biden are tied at 45 percent in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Biden leads Trump 46-45 percent in Wisconsin. Last month, Trump had 46 percent to Biden's 42 percent support in Wisconsin. He had also led Biden in Pennsylvania 49-43 percent previously.
As Morning Consult's Jason McMann pointed out, "TBD on whether it holds."
Biden has closed the gap w/Trump in Wisconsin and is showing early signs of starting to close it across the wider swing-state map. TBD on whether it holds. pic.twitter.com/zuuWjgLCUr
— Jason I. McMann, PhD (@jimcmann) March 26, 2024
What people are getting excited about here is a 4-point increase. It might even end up just being a blip. "Finally, some good news for President Joe Biden on the polling front," is how Henderson nevertheless began her opinion piece.
Her piece gets even more laughable from there, as she goes on to write (emphasis added):
So why is this happening now and how can Biden keep it up?
According to the poll, it’s clear that Biden got a bump from his State of the Union. He began that speech with questions from the media and voters about his stamina and mental acuity. He left that speech with something he had rarely gotten before — great reviews from the press and Democrats, who described his performance as “fiery” and “energetic.” When was the last time voters used those words to describe the 81-year-old Biden?
How about never?
According to the poll, one-third of voters said they had recently seen positive news (possibly about his speech which was viewed live by 32.2 million people) about Biden, the highest number since polling began in October. Biden and his team smartly capitalized on the spotlight and favorable press from the State of the Union, which frankly hasn’t moved the needle in years past, and fanned out across the country...
The more news piece about the poll also insists that it "follows a State of the Union address that rallied Democrats and seemed to mitigate concerns about Biden’s age."
That piece also goes on to discuss it in another way. "The speech may have helped with one of Biden's biggest campaign obstacles: concerns about his age. About six in 10 voters said that vice presidential running mates will be more important this year because Biden will be 81 and Trump will be 78 on Election Day. That's a seven-point drop from the February poll, which was fielded shortly after a special counsel's report called Biden an 'elderly man with a poor memory,'" it offers, but such a connection may be a stretch.
As we covered right after that hyperpartisan and deeply divisive State of the Union address, a poll from Yahoo News/YouGov showed that Biden did not receive a boost. In fact, his numbers got worse.
Further, Biden may have been so "fiery" and "energetic" during that speech because he could have been on pharmaceuticals. Since that speech, close to three weeks ago, there have still been slips and moments of confusion from Biden that make it clear "concerns about Biden's age" are not going away.
Henderson's agenda gets even more clear from there. Worse, is that Henderson takes part in promoting dishonest narratives, in this case, Trump speaking about "a bloodbath," which was debunked in real-time. Trump said "the country would face a 'bloodbath' if he weren’t elected in November," Henderson wrote when it comes to the campaign rally that Trump held in Ohio earlier this month. The full context of Trump's remarks shows he was clearly talking about a "bloodbath" in the economic sense, especially since he was talking about the U.S. auto industry, and speaking from Dayton, Ohio, where that's an even more relevant concern.
She also goes on to write, "Republicans, more broadly, are, quite frankly, a hot mess," and claim, "[B]y being normal, Biden and the Democrats make a compelling case for why Trump shouldn’t be elected."
With what Henderson writes next, praising campaign tactics that come off as gaslighting the American people, especially when it comes to the Israel-Hamas conflict, she seems to be coming from the left of the president:
By being normal, Biden and the Democrats make a compelling case for why Trump shouldn’t be elected. But they must continue to target specific voters, even if their approach sometimes seems...well...odd. (See GloRilla at the White House.) They must also continue to send out campaign press releases that lead to headlines like this: Vicious! Read the Biden Campaign’s Historic Burn of Donald Trump.
The upside for Biden is that he is president, and over these last weeks, he has just been, well, doing presidential things. He hasn’t solved the Gaza conflict. He hasn’t become 10 years younger. He hasn’t passed border reform. But he has delivered in the very basic ways that incumbent presidents can— announcing funding for job creation and loan forgiveness and slowly shifting his rhetoric and approach to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In other words, Biden hasn’t been a miracle worker who has solved all of his political problems. But he is slowly changing the narrative—on the airwaves and among Democrats—of his campaign by doing the bread-and-butter work of a politician.
If this is what people are saying to claim Biden's chances are improving, these don't seem to be serious people, but rather partisans rooting for Biden.
The Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll from this month was conducted March 8-15 with 437 registered voters in each state and a margin of error of plus or minus 3-5 percentage points in each state. The overall poll contained 4,932 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
Earlier this week, we also covered how Biden and Trump are tied at 46 percent in Pennsylvania, but also that Trump has a comfortable lead over Biden in Michigan, per the CNN poll released last Friday. In addition to that lead in Michigan, the poll also showed that Trump enjoys an advantage when it comes to who voters trust more for handling most issues, as well as how a majority of voters do not think Biden's "sharpness and stamina" is where they want it to be in a president.
The time for Trump to worry will be when he acts like he's not worried at all. The 2024 presidential race looks to not only be an intense one, but a competitive one as well.
Speaking further to that, a poll of registered voters shows Trump and Biden neck and neck, with 44 percent of all voters saying they support Biden and 43 percent saying they support Trump.
NEW: The 2024 presidential election remains incredibly close, with 9% of voters threatening to vote third-party and 5% undecided. Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 1 percentage point. https://t.co/lF3ua6fd57 pic.twitter.com/HSkDxv7H0W
— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) March 25, 2024
