Trump is Near the Apex of His Polling Strength. This is Great News for Biden.
April 27th, 2024
There is a lot of handwringing and concern over the State of the Race. With new polls dropping and the pundits clamoring about Trump’s trials, Biden backers are growing more and more worried while Trump’s team is getting more confident. Should this confidence be reversed?
1: Special Election Results Versus Polling
When trying to figure out how voters are feeling, actual results are better than hypothetical outcomes. You don’t need to be a certified Data Person to see that. While a rash of major outlying pro-Trump polls have been released in the last few days, those don’t square with what the actual election results have shown.
An entire new subsegment of political punditry now revolves around “crosstab truthing.” At its best, it highlights reasons to be skeptical of certain polling outcomes based on what these crosstabs show (i.e. a hypothetical Republican poll showing Trump winning women under 40 despite Dobbs). At its worst, this form of punditry seeks to nullify discussion of a reasonable outcome or trend based on a single crosstab (ex: hypothetical poll shows Trump +1 overall but pundit claims that’s impossible because Biden winning rural voters).
For a better sense of where things currently stand, check out Ethan C7’s special election tracker. While the special elections show an electorate that’s slightly redder than 2020, it most certainly is not favoring Trump. Polls are much easier to manipulate than actual elections.
Of course, the current polling hasn’t even taken into account the several ongoing Trump trials. Trump has largely benefitted from being out of the public eye for the last two years, but that will not hold. His polling lead is on borrowed time.
2: Campaigns Are Battles of Logistics
The Oxford Dictionary defines logistics as “the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies.” That’s pretty close to the way that I would describe it in the context of political campaigns: the methods to raise money, recruit volunteers, and turn out voters in support of a political candidate. Boy, does Biden have a major leg up over Trump here.
At the end of this year’s first quarter, the Biden campaign had $85.5M on hand compared with $44.6M for Trump. The president raised nearly triple what America’s First Defendant raised in March alone. While Biden is spending more early, that isn’t necessarily bad when you have nearly a 2:1 cash advantage and don’t have to spend over $100M on legal bills. Biden is using the cash strategically: he is defining the race along a referendum on abortion rights, middle and working class economics, and (to a lesser degree) January 6th/the general insanity of Trump’s first term. Biden is also staffing up in battleground states.
An incomplete count of Biden’s field offices includes five in Nevada, 24 in Pennsylvania, 10 in North Carolina, thirty in Michigan, and 44 in Wisconsin. Trump’s campaign is just now starting to build some field offices. While Trump definitely has an emotional and near cult-like following, that base is starting to shrink. Biden’s superior organization is much better placed to win over undecided and unenthusiastic voters who may stay at home instead of voting.
3: Biden Has Popular Down-Ballot Allies, Trump Has Disqualifying Ones
In the key races for Senate, Democrats are fielding electoral incumbent powerhouses: Tammy Baldwin (WI), Bob Casey (PA), Jon Tester (MT), and Sherrod Brown (OH). Republicans, on the other hand, are hoping for miracles as Kari Lake (AZ), Bernie Moreno (OH), Eric Hovde (WI), and David McCormick (PA) run head-first into the buzzsaw. This, of course, doesn’t even take into account the Republican’s Hitler-quoting gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson in North Carolina.
Quite frankly, the NC Democratic Chair Anderson Clayton has done a spectacular job in North Carolina. Along with WisDems Chair Ben Wikler, they may be the two most formidable chairs in the entire country.
Self-Immolating State Republican Parties: Part Two, Electric Boogaloo
The Republican Party faces the worst sort of Catch-22: their candidates can’t win primaries without the support of evangelical Christian voters, but because of the anti-abortion rights message of the megachurches and influential televangelists, voters are fleeing the GOP since Dobbs. Even when Republicans try to moderate their stances, voters simply don’t believe them or that Republican candidates are working in good faith.
Earlier this year, the Florida State Supreme Court eliminated a woman’s right to an abortion in the Sunshine State, overturning decades of precedent. While I still expect Trump and Rick Scott to win the state at the end of the day, it is in play. An upset (or two) is possible.
5: Party Consolidation/Suburb Shift
While the War in Gaza is definitely something that everyone should be concerned about for humanitarian reasons alone, there is also a marked increase in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents across the United States. That is unacceptable. Synagogues, mosques, and innocent people who practice Judaism and Islam are off-limits. We are supposed to be the moral example, despite our historical shortcomings.
The political ramifications of the war in Gaza has been most visible in the Nonaligned/Uninstructed/Noncommitted movement within the Democratic primary. I do suspect that despite the level of frustration in Biden and the level of anger about this latest conflict, it is easier for Biden to win back his voters than for Trump to paper over his differences with Haley voters.
Primary results through Super Tuesday. Credit: NYT
As Zac Harmon pointed out after the Pennsylvania primary, Trump has been bleeding support in the critical counties in every state this primary season, especially the Rust Belt. He calls the Pennsylvania result a five alarm fire for Trump, and I agree.
PA county results from the NYT. Assembled by Zac and used with permission.
If Trump tanks in the Rust Belt, its over. Arizona and Pennsylvania are off the board for Trump. I don’t see where he can make up ground except maybe Michigan. Nevada is unlikely to flip. North Carolina is threatened. If these suburban shifts continue and Trump ends up underperforming 2020 by a few points, we could be in landslide territory.
But that’s a question for November.
I appreciate everyone’s patience as I make my way through another busy baseball season. Only one more busy week and back to our regular schedule! All of you are wonderful people. As a small token of my appreciation, I’m going to launch my first-ever sale soon! More details to come.
