ReportWire

Tag: poll position

  • How Much Ground Has Trump Lost on Immigration in the Polls?

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    Photo: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

    There’s not much question that the brutal immigration-enforcement tactics on display in Minneapolis and elsewhere have roiled U.S. politics. The resulting furor produced a partial government shutdown, and Trump himself seems wrong-footed by the world-wide backlash to scenes of masked thugs attacking immigrants, protesters, and bystanders alike.

    But it’s a little more difficult to measure how much this has affected Donald Trump’s own public standing. Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent on January 7. Alex Pretti was killed by Border Control agents on January 24. Using the polling averages at Silver Bulletin, we see that Trump’s overall net job-approval rating stood at minus-12.2 percent on January 6 and dropped to minus-14.6 percent by the end of the month (it’s at minus-14.4 percent on February 11). The percentage of Americans strongly disapproving of Trump’s job performance has increased to a second-term high of 46.2 percent (24.1 percent strongly approve, which is near the second-term low of 23.8 percent). As usual, the mix of pollsters releasing data in this period puts various thumbs on scales. Readings on Trump’s net job-approval range from Insider Advantage, whose February 1 survey pegged it at 1 percent, to Pew Research, which placed it at minus-24 percent as of January 26.

    Looking at post-shootings job-approval trends for specific pollsters is tough, since few have released multiple surveys in January or February. Morning Consult’s tracking poll shows little change. Nor did Economist/YouGov, which pegged Trump’s net job approval at minus-16 percent on January 26 and minus-17 percent on February 9. Interestingly, one of Trump’s favorite polling outlets, Rasmussen Reports, showed his net approval dropping to a second-term low of minus-16 percent on February 5, before rebounding somewhat to minus-9 percent as of February 11.

    Silver Bulletin maintains separate averages for polling on Trump’s job approval with respect to particular issues. The immigration trend has been downward (if unevenly so) since June. Net job approval on immigration was at minus-3.8 percent as recently as December 10. It fell all the way to minus-12.4 percent on January 26 and is now at minus-11.1 percent. It’s been clear for quite some time that what was once Trump’s strongest issue area is now another problem for him, albeit not as severe as perceptions he is mishandling the economy. His net job approval on the economy is minus-16.7 percent, and on handling inflation is minus-25.2 percent, though both numbers were worse at the end of 2025.

    A few recent polls that conduct deeper dives on immigration policy tell us much more about the impact of immigration-enforcement atrocities. The Economist/YouGov survey from February 2 is particularly nuanced. Fifty percent of Americans say Trump’s approach to immigration policy is “too harsh,” 8 percent say it’s “too soft,” and 36 percent say it’s “about right.” Democrats and Republicans are sharply polarized on the question, as usual, and 54 percent of independents say Trump’s approach is “too harsh.” The “too harsh” percentage rises to 58 percent among Hispanics. Sixty-three percent of Americans, and even 35 percent of Republicans, oppose deportation of illegal immigrants “who have lived in the U.S. for many years without committing any crimes.” Sizable majorities favor a raft of restrictions on ICE agents. Perhaps most tellingly, 53 percent of Americans agree, and only 24 percent disagree, with the statement that “Alex Pretti was wrongfully executed by immigration agents.”

    A February 2 Quinnipiac poll shows 62 percent of registered voters think the shooting of Alex Pretti was unjustified, while only 22 percent call it justified. More generally, 63 percent of registered voters disapprove of “the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws,” while 34 percent approve.

    Most recently, a February 6 NBC News Decision Desk survey of registered voters showed “49% of adults strongly disapprove of how Trump has handled border security and immigration, up from 38% strong disapproval last summer and 34% in April.” And a February 9 GBAO poll, also of registered voters, focused on perceptions of Democratic demands for ICE reforms. By a margin of 52 percent to 36 percent, respondents favored withholding DHS funding until ICE is reformed. And support for the individual demands Democrats have made with respect to ICE ranges from a low of 63 percent (allowing private lawsuits against ICE agents) to a high of 75 percent (requiring ICE participation in state and local investigations into potential violations of rights).

    How the administration handles immigration enforcement going forward will determine how much residual damage the events in Minneapolis have damaged public support for ICE, mass deportation, and Trump himself. But Americans are definitely paying attention now.

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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Trump’s Low Approval Rating Is Hurting Republicans in Polls

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

    One of the major narratives that came out of the very poor showing of Republicans in the 2025 elections is that the GOP struggles to win when Donald Trump is not on the ballot. Certainly the president himself shares that belief, as he said on Election Night in no uncertain terms on social media: “‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT.”

    This was cold comfort for Republicans who understand that Trump isn’t going to be on the ballot in 2026, either. But beyond that, the narrative may not even be true. Polls keep showing that Trump is increasingly a drag on his party and that his weaknesses in the electorate very much resemble the GOP’s weaknesses on November 4.

    There’s now little question that the president’s job-approval ratings have been steadily sliding downward for the past couple of months. On September 20, his net approval average at Silver Bulletin was at minus-7.5 percent (44.9 percent approval, 52.4 percent disapproval). On November 20, it was at minus-14.1. percent, which is a new low for his second term. The intensity of his unpopularity is high and rising: 45.2 percent of Americans strongly disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, again per the averages at Silver Bulletin.

    On particular issues, his net approval remains underwater on all the major categories: immigration (minus-7.2 percent), trade (minus-18.8), the economy (minus-20.2), and inflation (minus-34). The numbers for immigration, the economy, and inflation are at second-term lows. The last two are noteworthy given the importance of “affordability” in the 2025 Democratic victories (reflected in Trump’s own messaging beginning the moment the November 4 results were in) and, beyond that, the importance of these issues in Trump’s 2024 victory.

    A poll from Fox News released on Wednesday probed more deeply into public sentiment on the economy and showed that the administration’s argument that high prices were caused by Joe Biden isn’t working anymore:

    By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, voters say Trump is more responsible for the current economy than Biden (62% vs. 32%). Unsurprisingly, there’s a large partisan gap, as Democrats are nearly 40 percentage points more likely than Republicans to blame Trump. Somewhat surprisingly though, 42% of Republicans blame him, while a 53% majority says Biden is responsible. Among independents, 62% say Trump and 29% Biden.

    Not all polls break down the electorate, but those that do are pretty consistent in showing that Trump’s 2024 coalition is shrinking back from the hard-core MAGA base. New polling from The Argument reinforces that impression forcefully:

    Republicans are hemorrhaging support with the young, nonwhite, and disengaged voters who powered Trump’s victory in 2024. Here are a few tidbits to show just what I’m talking about:

    Democrats are winning 25% of nonwhite Trump 2024 voters. Among white voters, this number is just 4%.

    Among registered voters who didn’t vote for either Harris or Trump in 2024, Democrats receive 62% of the vote — a 25-percentage-point lead. Among the white voters of this group, Democrats lead by two points; among nonwhite nonvoters, they lead by 48 points.

    Democrats win 64% of young voters in our survey, for a lead of 28 points. (For context, in 2024, they won this group by just 10 points.)

    Exit polls from the 2025 elections showed exactly the same pro-Democratic trends among young and non-white voters in New Jersey and Virginia. If the numbers persist into 2026, it’s hard to imagine Republicans hanging on to their control of the House — particularly if Trump’s effort to change the landscape through gerrymandering continues to flounder. In addition to Trump’s popularity issues, and despite their own well-known problems, Democrats are now opening up a significant lead in the congressional generic ballot, an approximation of the House popular vote next year. According to RealClearPolling, the average Democratic lead on the generic ballot is 4.8 percent, another 2025 high. At Decision Desk HQ, the Democratic lead is 5.4 percent; Republicans led by 5.3 percent there at the beginning of 2025. The Argument explains what these trends might mean in the results:

    If the election were held today, Republicans may be facing a blue wave larger than the 2018 midterms, which resulted in a commanding Democratic House majority. Put simply, they are in really bad shape.

    How bad? Consider this: In our survey fielded right after the election, Nov. 10-17, Republicans trailed by four percentage points among registered voters. When we pushed undecided voters to pick a side, that deficit expanded to six percentage points. And after that was filtered to just those who said they were likely to vote, it grew even further, to 7.6 points.

    So neither the GOP nor its leader are doing that well at the moment, particularly on the affordability issues that they now recognize are so crucial to swing voters. Some Republican candidates in 2026 will choose to cleave to Trump even more fiercely, and others may try to achieve some distance, but they’re probably joined at the hip for better or worse.

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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Trump Net Job Approval Reaches Second-Term Low

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    Photo: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

    Donald Trump does not appear to be particularly worried about public opinion. Despite a government shutdown, which he seems to believe his party is “winning,” the president is jetting around the world, cutting deals, accepting extravagant gifts, and claiming to resolve wars and other conflicts. Indeed, in the context of his unhappiness at not being able to run for a third term, he keeps telling us he has “the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had.”

    That’s not true. In fact, according to the polling averages we use here from Silver Bulletin, Trump’s net approval rating today, at minus-10.8 percent, is the lowest of his second term. His average approval rating of 43.1 percent also equals his second-term low, and his average disapproval rating is also a second-term high at 53.9 percent. He’s at net double-digit negatives in the most recent polls from Economist-YouGov (minus-19 percent), Quinnipiac (minus-14 percent), Reuters-Ipsos (minus-17 percent), American Research Group (minus-23 percent), and Gallup (minus-13 percent). Even Trump’s favorite polling outlet, Rasmussen Reports, currently has him at a second-term low net approval rating of minus-8 percent. By way of context, it should be noted the only president dating back to Harry Truman with a lower net job approval rating at this point of his presidency was Trump himself during his first term (he was at net minus-17.3 percent, per Silver Bulletin).

    Trump’s low point in net job approval is the product of a slow and somewhat erratic deterioration over time rather than any sudden lurch. It’s been underwater since March, and over 5 percent-net-negative since June. There’s no single issue driving his lower approvals, so far as we can tell, though again, according to Silver Bulletin, he has net-negative job-approval averages on immigration (minus-3.0 percent), trade (minus-16.2 percent), the economy (minus-16.4 percent), and inflation (minus-27.6 percent). Bad as that last number is, it was quite a bit worse on October 1 (minus-32.8 percent).

    More specific issues aren’t helping Trump’s standing but may not be as significant as the fundamentals. The most recent Quinnipiac poll shows voters split pretty equally on blame for the ongoing government shutdown. And while nearly half of respondents approve of Trump’s handling of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire, well over half doubt it will stick. A recent Yahoo-YouGov poll finds that Americans disapprove of Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing to build a ballroom by a 61 percent to 25 percent margin, but it’s unclear how much it matters to them.

    Trump has been very preoccupied with trying to improve his party’s odds in the 2026 midterms by pushing Republican-controlled states to draw congressional maps in the GOP’s favor. Polls show why he feels the need to rig the landscape: In the generic congressional ballot that tests which party Americans want to control Congress, Democrats currently lead by 2.7 percent in the RealClearPolitics averages. In the same averages before last year’s elections producing the current tiny GOP House majority, Republicans led by 0.3 percent. DecisionDesk HQ places the current Democratic advantage on the generic ballot at 3.5 percent.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Trump Approval Rating on Economy Hits New Low

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    Mr. Tough Guy.
    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

    Donald Trump’s job-approval ratings have been essentially stable for the last couple of months. According to the Silver Bulletin’s polling averages, his net approval rating was at minus-8 percent on July 25 and is at minus-8.4 percent on September 22. Trump’s second-term job-approval averages started at plus-11.7 percent on January 21, went underwater in March, bottomed out in mid-July at minus-10.3 percent, then increased a bit and stayed put. That means Trump is less popular than any post–World War II president at this stage in their presidency, other than himself during his first term. (For comparison, Joe Biden was at minus-2.6 percent at this point.)

    While Trump’s overall approval ratings have stabilized at the moment, there’s some churn beneath the surface in terms of how his performance is judged on specific issues. Again per Silver Bulletin, his net job-approval ratings on the economy have now sunk to a second-term low of minus-15.5 percent. Similarly, assessment of his handling of inflation — arguably the issue that got him elected last year — has steadily deteriorated throughout 2025 and now stands at a terrible minus-30.4 percent. Approval of his job performance on trade dropped to minus-20.2 in April, soon after his imposition of major tariffs on the so-called Liberation Day, and is at minus-18.9 percent now following much erratic conduct on tariffs.

    It’s not so surprising, then, that the 47th president has shifted his emphasis from economic policy to law-and-order issues. His job-approval averages at Silver Bulletin on immigration went underwater in June and now stand at minus-3.4 percent — not great but much better than his standing on most other issues. Pollsters that break out “border control” separately from “immigration” typically find Trump doing much better in that subarea of immigration policy.

    After Trump began talking about an imaginary national crime wave and then federalized law enforcement in the District of Columbia, assessments of his leadership on crime policy began popping up, and it consistently ranks as his second-strongest major issue area, trailing immigration. For example, a September 12–15 Economist/YouGov survey showed him with 42 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval on crime policy, significantly better than his overall job-approval ratio of 39 percent positive and 57 percent negative. Similarly, an September 11–15 AP/NORC survey gave him 46 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval on crime, and just 39 percent approval and 60 percent disapproval overall. Polls with higher overall Trump approval ratios showed the same pattern. A September 6–9 Fox News poll gave the president a relatively benign 50 percent–50 percent rating on “crime and public safety” (second only to border control in approval percentage) alongside a 46 percent approval to 54 percent disapproval in his overall job performance.

    You could argue that the “law and order” issues of immigration and crime work better for Trump than anything related to the economy, including trade, inflation, or health care. It’s not surprising, then, that he’s leaning into such issues. There’s very limited polling on public reaction to his plans for deploying National Guard units and federal law-enforcement assets in urban areas. A September 3–5 CBS News survey shows 43 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval for Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, but it may go over well locally in red states with “blue cities.” Overall, what we have suggests that framing such initiatives as essential for fighting crime would be Trump’s best strategy.

    The president’s latest threat to conduct a “crackdown” on supposed radical-left organizations deemed to have encouraged political violence could also be pitched as a law-and-order measure despite the ominous implications for civil liberties and democratic norms. Such an angle might thrill the GOP’s MAGA base without unduly alarming swing voters, but only if Trump exhibits some uncharacteristic self-control.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Final Trump vs. Harris Polls Show It’s Down to the Wire

    Final Trump vs. Harris Polls Show It’s Down to the Wire

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    A week before Election Day, an estimated 47 million votes have already been cast in the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It’s possible the polls are wrong, but it’s unlikely they will change much before this long and winding campaign cycle ends. Polling analysts, who have varying methods of averaging polls, have slightly different takes on the race. But without splitting hairs, it’s hard to see this as anything other than an incredibly close race where late turnout trends and polling errors wind up telling us what we cannot know right now: the identity of the 47th president.

    In national polling averages, Kamala Harris leads by 1.5 percent per FiveThirtyEight; 1.2 percent per Nate Silver; 2 percent according to the Washington Post (which rounds numbers) and one percent according to the New York Times (which also rounds numbers). RealClearPolitics, which unlike the other outlets doesn’t weigh polls for accuracy or adjust them for partisan bias, shows Trump leading nationally by an eyelash (0.1 percent).

    While national polls can help us understand trends and underlying dynamics, mostly because they tend to have larger samples, the fact that they have been so very close for weeks if not months suggests they can’t tell us who will actually win. The best we can do is extrapolate, based on the relationship between the national popular vote and the electoral vote count in previous election. It makes Democrats nervous to see Harris leading Trump by under 2 percent in the national polls because Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 while winning the national popular vote by 2.1 percent, while Joe Biden barely won in 2020 despite winning the popular vote by 4.5 percent. But we have no idea if Trump will again have an Electoral College advantage, and if so how large it might be. (Harris might actually perform better in the Electoral College than in the popular vote, as Barack Obama did in 2012.) And while we don’t know how polling errors will cut, it does seem the overall quality of polls this year is higher than in recent presidential elections.

    So it’s a better idea to focus on polls in the seven battleground states. But they too are crazy close overall. You can identify leaders in all seven if you get down to fractions. FiveThirtyEight currently shows Trump leading in five of those seven states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania), but by less than a single point in Nevada and Pennsylvania. Harris leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, but again, it’s by less than one percent. A look at the rounded battlefield-state numbers in the New York Times averages is eye-opening: It shows four battleground states (Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) as “even,” with Harris leading in Michigan by less than one percent, Trump leading in Georgia by one percent, and Trump leading in Arizona by 2 percent. A one percent uniform swing could give Harris 308 electoral votes or Trump 312 electoral votes. The Washington Post’s battleground-state averages make the same point in a slightly different way. They show Harris leading in four states (Michigan by 2 percent, Nevada by less than one percent, Pennsylvania by one percent, and Wisconsin by one percent) and Trump in three (Arizona by two percent, Georgia by two percent, and North Carolina by one percent). But then the Post makes this crucial observation: “Every state is within a normal-sized polling error of 3.5 points and could go either way.”

    Both national and state polls suggest that the dynamics of the Harris-Trump contest remain reasonably clear. On the issues, Trump is very strong with voters who care most about immigration and continues to lead in most polls (though by shrinking margins) among voters focused on the economy. Meanwhile, Harris has a big lead among voters worried about abortion rights. If you start with the Biden-Trump divisions in the electorate from 2020, Harris has improved the Democratic performance among college-educated white voters, while Trump has improved the Republican performance among Black and Latino voters. Unsurprisingly, this puts a small thumb on the scales for Harris in the states with relatively low nonwhite voting blocs (e.g., Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), and helps Trump in Sun Belt states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. But there are some contradictory undercurrents, with the Harris campaign working hard to bring Black men back into her column, while Trump’s entire get-out-the-vote strategy is based on mobilizing low-propensity voters from his core demographic groups (especially non-college-educated white voters). The significant reaction this week of opinion leaders to slurs about Puerto Ricans (a crucial swing demographic in extremely close and pivotal Pennsylvania) offered up by a comedian at Trump’s wild New York City rally shows that campaign-trail events can still affect the outcome.

    So it’s a good idea to keep an eye on late-breaking polls during the final days of the campaign, and to try not to get too distracted by potentially misleading data points and claims. There’s a lot of scrutiny of early voting trends, for example. But aside from reflecting a general drop in voting by mail since the pandemic election of 2020, and the efforts of Republicans to encourage early in-person voting in particular by their partisans, it’s hard to know what the numbers mean since most early voters would otherwise be voting on Election Day and Democrats tend to be relatively “late” early voters. Some of the old reliable indicators of presidential-election outcomes are of limited use. Yes, the president’s job-approval rating is currently at a terrible 39.5 percent (per FiveThirtyEight), but then Kamala Harris has done a reasonably good job of presenting herself as a “change” candidate despite her own incumbency. And yes, Harris has a small but steady advantage over Trump in personal favorability (FiveThirtyEight has her ratio at 46.3 per cent favorable to 47.5 unfavorable, while Trump’s is 43.5 percent favorable to 52.1 percent unfavorable), but so did Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    If you had to pick a likely winner at this point, the official forecasters all lean toward Trump by the narrowest of margins (The Economist has the most robust Trump win probability, at 56 percent; Nate Silver and Decision Desk HQ have Trump at 54 percent; FiveThirtyEight shows him at 53 percent). Some analysts look at the race in terms of Electoral College scenarios that aren’t very clear; here’s the New York Times’ characterization of the overall race: “Neither candidate currently holds a polling lead in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes. Polls in the tipping point states are essentially tied.” Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball expresses contradictory “gut feelings,” citing trends favoring Trump but noting a sense of déjà vu from 2022 that favors Harris.

    In other words, it’s going down to the wire.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Harris vs. Trump Polls: Kamala’s Debate Bounce Emerges

    Harris vs. Trump Polls: Kamala’s Debate Bounce Emerges

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    There’s very little question that Kamala Harris was the stronger contestant in the September 10 debate in Philadelphia. Snap polls said so, but if there was any doubt it should have been resolved by the intense and incessant claims from Team Trump that the event was “rigged” by its media sponsor and the moderators.

    The bigger question, though, is whether the debate will move the race in Harris’s direction in subsequent polls. It’s too early to say definitively, but there is enough initial polling to suggest that it did Harris some significant good at a time when there were fears among her supporters that her high-flying campaign was finally drifting back toward hard ground. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn summarizes the early evidence:

    It’s still too soon to judge the fallout from the presidential debate, but the polls already suggest that Kamala Harris might be poised to gain.

    The initial surveys of people who watched the debate found that most viewers thought she won, and the candidate deemed the winner in the post-debate surveys usually tends to gain in the polls.

    The first few polls taken entirely since Tuesday’s debate show her faring better than polls taken beforehand …

    According to our average, she has already gained about one point nationwide, rising from a 1.7-point lead on Wednesday morning to a 2.7-point lead as of Monday morning. That one-point shift has been reasonably consistent across the six national polls that took surveys before and after the debate.

    That could be just the beginning of the good news for Harris, as Cohn continues:

    In the days ahead, Ms. Harris may gain even more ground. For one, most of the post-debate polls have come from online panels. They tend to shift less than other polls, as they’re often composed of highly engaged voters and weighted more heavily than the typically more volatile phone surveys, which will probably arrive this week.

    There’s another reason: Many people don’t watch debates, but they do hear the post-debate coverage — like the continuing discussion of Mr. Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been eating pets. Extended coverage of a debate can help the perceived winner just as much as the debate itself, and yield additional polling gains in the days or even weeks thereafter.

    One big question is whether the second attempted assassination of Trump in Florida on September 15 is distracting voters from further contemplation of the former president’s erratic performance on September 10 or might produce a sympathetic reaction in his favor. It will be a while before we have the answer, which will help determine where the race has settled post-debate. And by next week, we should also be getting robust post-debate poll findings from battleground states, where, of course, the election will ultimately be decided.

    At this point, to be clear, the balance of power between Harris and Trump in the Electoral College is on a razor’s edge. But to some extent the Sun Belt–Rust Belt divide between Republican-leaning and Democrat-leaning battleground states has reemerged. In the FiveThirtyEight averages, Trump leads in Arizona by 0.8 percent (47.4 to 46.7 percent), in Georgia by the same 0.8 percent (47.8 to 47.0 percent), and in North Carolina by an even smaller 0.4 percent (47.5 to 47.1 percent). Harris is hanging on to a 0.4 percent lead (46.9 to 46.5 percent) in the fourth Sun Belt state, Nevada. And she leads in all the Rust Belt (also known as Blue Wall) battleground states: in Michigan by 1.5 percent (47.6 to 46.1 percent), in Pennsylvania by 0.6 percent (47.4 to 46.8 percent), and in Wisconsin by 2.7 percent (48.6 to 46.0).

    If you build an electoral vote map based on these numbers (with everything else staying as it was in 2020), then Harris leads with 276 electoral votes to Trump’s 262. But two notes of caution are in order, beyond the seven weeks of campaigning left in which lots could happen. The candidates remain within a point of each other in the two most likely tipping-point states, according to most estimates, Georgia and Pennsylvania. And as it happens the two states with the greatest polling errors underestimating Trump’s vote in 2016 and 2020 are Pennsylvania and Michigan, where Harris might need a bigger polling lead.

    One possible advantage that Harris might retain is a favorability edge that leaves more undecided voters open to supporting her. At present her ratio (per FiveThirtyEight) is now positive at 46.6 percent favorable and 46.5 unfavorable. Trump’s ratio is at 42.9 percent favorable and 52.5 percent unfavorable. It’s not a huge gap, but this is a profoundly big contest that may turn on small things.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Harris vs. Trump Polls: Kamala’s Gains Are Now a Trend, Not Just a Bounce

    Harris vs. Trump Polls: Kamala’s Gains Are Now a Trend, Not Just a Bounce

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

    It has now been over two weeks since Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris as his presumptive replacement as Democratic nominee. Unsurprisingly, Harris got a quick bounce in the polls as the new, younger, and fresher rival to Donald Trump. But now it’s becoming clear this is a trend, not just a momentary bounce.

    According to the FiveThirtyEight national polling averages, Harris is leading Trump by 1.7 percent (45.1 to 43.4 percent), with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 5.4 percent. When Biden dropped out, he was trailing in the same averages by 3.2 percent. In a contest as static as the 2024 presidential race had been, that’s a big swing.

    The trend lines in national polls are equally telling. YouGov-Economist tested Harris against Trump back on July 16, showing Trump leading by 5 percent (44 to 39 percent). Then, on July 23, after Biden’s withdrawal, the same pollster had Trump leading Harris by 3 percent (44 to 41 percent). On July 30, YouGov-Economist showed Harris leading Trump by 2 percent (46 to 44 percent). Similarly, RMG Research had Trump leading Harris by two points (48 to 46 percent) on July 23, with Harris leading Trump by five points (47 to 42 percent) on July 31. Morning Consult’s tracking poll showed Trump leading Harris by two points ( 47 – 45 percent) on July 22 but then Harris leading Trump by four points (48 – 44 percent) on August 4. A CBS poll of likely voters conducted by YouGov shows a three-point Trump lead (51 to 48 percent) on July 18 turning into a one-point Harris lead (50 to 49 percent) on August 2.

    Polls comparing the Harris-Trump matchup to the earlier Biden-Trump matchup mostly show the same pro-Democratic trend. On July 16, Reuters-Ipsos showed Trump ahead of Biden by two points (43 percent to 41 percent). On July 23, the same poll gave Harris a two-point lead (44 percent to 42 percent). On July 2, the New York Times–Siena showed Trump leading Biden by six points (49 percent to 43 percent). On July 24, that pollster showed Trump leading Harris by one point (48 percent to 47 percent). Similarly, on July 2, The Wall Street Journal had Trump leading Biden by six points (48 to 42 percent) and Harris by just two points (49 to 47 percent) on July 25. Both Times-Siena and WSJ showed Harris ahead by a point when non-major-party candidates were included. Most recently, Survey USA showed Harris leading Trump by three points (48 – 45 percent) among likely voters as of August 5; the same pollster showed Trump leading Biden by two points (45 – 43 percent) back on June 28.

    Battleground-state data has been slower to arrive, but what we have shows Harris improving on Biden’s performance quite consistently. A battery of Emerson–The Hill polls taken from July 22 to July 23 of five battleground states showed Wisconsin tied at 47 percent and Trump leading Harris by five points (49 percent to 44 percent) in Arizona; two points (48 percent to 46 percent) in Georgia; one point (46 percent to 45 percent) in Michigan; and two points (48 percent to 46 percent) in Pennsylvania. What’s more significant are the trend lines since the last polls from Emerson in mid-July, testing Biden against Trump:

    Most recently, and perhaps impressively, Bloomberg–Morning Consult has released a new batch of seven battleground-state polls taken from July 24–28. Overall, they showed Harris leading Trump by one percent (48 to 47 percent), as compared to a two-point Trump lead over Biden in early July. The individual state gains by Harris were also striking: She led by 2 percent (49 to 47 percent) in Arizona, a real problem state for Biden; by 2 percent (47 to 45 percent) in Nevada; by 2 percent (49 to 47 percent) in Wisconsin; and by an astonishing 11 percent (53 to 42 percent) in Michigan. Harris was tied with Trump in Georgia at 47 percent, and she trailed him by 2 percent (46 to 48 percent) in North Carolina and by 4 percent (46 to 50 percent) in Pennsylvania.

    Three battleground states have enough post-Biden-Harris-switch polling now for FiveThirtyEight to compile averages, and all of them show very close races. In Georgia, Trump leads by 1.1 percent (45.9 to 44.8 percent), but Harris leads in Michigan by 1.8 percent (44.8 to 43.1 percent) and most surprisingly, in Pennsylvania by 0.4 percent (45.1 to 44.6 percent).

    There is also significant evidence that Harris is doing better than Biden among the young, Black, and Latino voting categories on which Biden’s 2020 win depended. In the most recent Times-Siena poll, she leads Trump among under-30 likely voters by 59 percent to 38 percent, among Black likely voters by 72 percent to 19 percent, and among Latino likely voters by 60 percent to 36 percent. A new Axios–Generation Lab poll of 18- to 34-year-old voters showed Harris expanding a six-point Biden lead (53 percent to 47 percent) to 20 points (60 percent to 40 percent). The very latest likely voter survey from CBS-YouGov shows Harris at over 60 percent among under-30 voters, and over 80 percent among Black voters. And a new large-sample survey of Latino voters in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina from BSP Research shows Harris leading Trump by a robust 55 – 37 percent margin.

    More generally, Harris is becoming more popular than Biden. FiveThirtyEight’s favorability averages for Harris currently show her at 42.4 percent favorable/49.1 percent unfavorable, up from a 36/54 ratio a month ago, and distinctly better than Biden’s 38/54 margin when he dropped out of the race.

    The odds are good that with Harris having the opportunity to dominate political news with the reveal of her VP pick and soon afterwards a united Democratic convention, she can keep this positive trend in her standing up and running for most of this month. That’s if she makes no big mistakes, and if the Trump-Vance ticket continues to show signs of disorientation at the new contest it faces.


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  • Harris vs. Trump Polls: It’s a New Race

    Harris vs. Trump Polls: It’s a New Race

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    It’s been an exciting past week for Kamala Harris. Last Sunday, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed his vice-president. In the ensuing days, she quickly locked up the Democratic nomination as every potential rival endorsed her. And while it’s early yet, there’s now enough polling data to indicate that it’s a brand-new race — with Democrats obtaining some badly needed momentum and perhaps some new avenues for victory.

    When Biden dropped out on July 21, he was trailing Donald Trump by 3.2 percent in the FiveThirtyEight polling averages and by 3.1 percent in the RealClearPolitics averages. FiveThirtyEight hasn’t posted averages with Harris, but RCP has her trailing Trump by 1.7 percent, and that’s with two outlierish polls from Rasmussen and Forbes-HarrisX giving Trump big leads (7 percent and 6 percent, respectively). When non-major-party candidates are included, Trump’s lead at RCP is at 1.8 percent.

    Perhaps more significant are the trend lines in major polls taken before and after the Biden-Harris switch.

    On July 17, the Morning Consult tracking poll had Trump leading Biden by four points (46 percent to 42 percent). On July 24, the same poll had Harris leading Trump by a point (46 percent to 45 percent). On July 16, Reuters-Ipsos showed Trump ahead of Biden by two points (43 percent to 41 percent). On July 23, the same poll gave Harris a two-point lead (44 percent to 42 percent). On July 2, the New York Times–Siena showed Trump leading Biden by six points (49 percent to 43 percent). On July 24, that pollster showed Trump leading Harris by one point (48 percent to 47 percent). Similarly, on July 2 the Wall Street Journal had Trump leading Biden by six points (48 – 42 percent), and Harris by just two points 49 – 47 percent) on July 25. Both Times-Siena and WSJ showed Harris ahead by a point when non-major-party candidates were included. The only counter-indicator to those polls was NPR-Marist, in which Biden led by two points (50 percent to 48 percent) on July 11, while Trump led by one point (46 percent to 45 percent) in a one-day July 22 survey.

    All of these polls show a close national race. Battleground-state data has been slower to arrive, but what we have shows Harris improving on Biden’s performance quite consistently. A battery of Emerson–The Hill polls taken from July 22 to July 23 of five battleground states showed Wisconsin tied at 47 percent and Trump leading Harris by five points (49 percent to 44 percent) in Arizona, two points (48 percent to 46 percent) in Georgia, one point (46 percent to 45 percent) in Michigan, and two points (48 percent to 46 percent) in Pennsylvania. What’s more significant are the trend lines since the last polls from Emerson in mid-July, testing Biden against Trump:

    Fox News released surveys showing the Trump-Harris raced tied as of July 24 in Michigan (at 49 percent) and Pennsylvania (at 49 percent), and Trump leading by a single point (50 – 49 percent) in Wisconsin. A separate poll of Georgia from Landmark Communications also showed a close race there with Trump leading Harris by one point (48 percent to 47 percent).

    A new poll of Pennsylvania from NSOR–American Greatness showed Trump up by two points in that state (47 percent to 45 percent), which was countered by a survey from Susquehanna giving Harris a four-percent lead (47 – 43 percent). And a poll of Michigan including non-major-party candidates from Detroit News/WDIV gave Harris a one-point lead (42 to 41 percent).

    Most recently, and perhaps impressively, Bloomberg/Morning Consult has released a new batch of seven battleground state polls taken from July 24-28. Overall, they showed Harris leading Trump by one percent (48 – 47 percent), as compared to a two-point Trump lead over Biden in early July. The individual state gains by Harris were also striking: she led by two percent (49 – 47 percent) in Arizona, a real problem state for Biden; by two percent (47 – 45 percent) in Nevada; by two percent (49 – 47 percent) in Wisconsin; and by an astonishing 11 percent (53 – 42 percent) in Michigan. Harris was tied with Trump in Georgia at 47 percent, and trailed him by two percent (46 – 48 percent) in North Carolina and by four percent (46 – 50 percent) in Pennsylvania.

    There is growing evidence that (as Democrats had hoped) Harris is doing significantly better than Biden among the young, Black, and Latino voting categories on which the Biden-Harris 2020 win depended. In the new Times-Siena poll, she leads Trump among under-30 likely voters by 59 percent to 38 percent, among Black likely voters by 72 percent to 19 percent, and among Latino likely voters by 60 percent to 36 percent. A new Axios–Generation Lab poll of 18-to-34-year-old voters showed Harris expanding a six-point Biden lead (53 percent to 47 percent) to 20 points (60 percent to 40 percent). And the new battleground polls from Bloomberg-Morning Consult indicate a big uptick in enthusiasm to vote among Black and Latino voters. All these trends could help Harris put Sun Belt states (particularly Georgia) back into play after Trump has held big leads for months.

    Aside from horse-race polling, Harris appears to be becoming more popular now that she has emerged from Biden’s shadow. An ABC-Ipsos survey from July 26-27 gave her a +1 favorability ratio (43 percent favorable, 42 percent unfavorable), up from a -11 ratio (35 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable) just a week earlier.

    In general, there’s a sense of momentum for Harris that may not last, but it has lifted Democratic spirits — and perhaps even reengaged an electorate unhappy with a Biden-Trump rematch (the new Times-Siena poll showed the number of “double haters” declining by more than half). It would be wise to stay very tuned for this contest.

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  • What the Polls Say Today: Democrats Take Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot

    What the Polls Say Today: Democrats Take Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot

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    Will the Speaker of the House in 2025 be Mike Johnson or Hakeem Jeffries?
    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    All the recent drama in the U.S. House of Representatives involving foreign aid and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s effort to oust Mike Johnson illustrated the perils of a small and unstable House majority. But it’s better than nothing, which is what Republicans may have in terms of power in the House after the November general election. It’s still anybody’s bet which party will control the House in the upcoming 119th Congress. The Wall Street Journal recently looked at House-race ratings from three highly reputed independent handicappers and suggested Republicans should be favored to hang on to control, albeit narrowly. We don’t actually know the final map of districts thanks to litigation over a new majority-Black district in Louisiana that may or may not survive until November.

    But one instrument for determining the likely outcome of House elections points toward a small Democratic advantage: the so-called generic congressional ballot. This is a polling question deployed for many years that simply asks respondents which party’s candidate they intend to vote for in an upcoming U.S. House election. Currently, Democrats lead by 1.2 percent (45.2 percent to 44 percent) in the RealClearPolitics averages of polls measuring generic congressional preferences and by 0.8 percent (44.5 percent to 43.7 percent) in the FiveThirtyEight averages. This represents a recent shift. In the RCP averages, Republicans led in the generic congressional balloting from mid-November 2023 until late April 2024, though never by more than 3 percent. FiveThirtyEight showed Democrats taking a narrow lead in mid-March.

    These numbers are worth watching because the generic congressional ballot has a record of considerable (but not universal) accuracy in estimating the national House popular vote. Most recently, in 2022, Democrats won the national House popular vote by 2.8 percent after leading in the RCP polling averages for the generic ballot by 2.5 percent. On the other hand, in 2020, Democrats significantly underperformed as compared to generic-ballot polling, winning the House popular vote by just 3.1 percent after leading in the polling averages by 6.8 percent. Complicating the picture even more is the fact that the House popular vote does not always sync with the proportion of House seats won; often, Democrats don’t win as many seats as the vote totals would suggest, reflecting (it appears) a less efficient distribution of votes across House districts and/or Republican success in gerrymandering. An extreme example occurred in 2012 when Democrats won the national House popular vote by 1.2 percent but won only 201 of the 435 House seats.

    There’s an increasingly strong tendency in presidential-election years for the national House popular vote to echo the presidential vote. In 2020, Joe Biden won 51.3 percent of the popular vote, just 0.5 percent higher than his party’s 50.8 percent of the national House vote. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s percentage of the popular vote (48.2 percent) was nearly identical to the Democratic share of the national House popular vote (48.0 percent). So trends in the presidential contest could give us a heads-up on what is likely to happen in the House and vice versa.

    What the next president of the United States could really use is a trifecta, or control of Congress along with the White House. As it happens, five of the past six presidential-election cycles (all but 2012) have produced a trifecta, though the last two (2016 and 2020) have been won by exceedingly narrow margins in one or both congressional chambers. Right now, Republicans are favored to flip the Senate, but it would be foolish to place any big bets at this point on the outcome of either the presidential or House elections.


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  • Trump-vs.-Biden Polls: Don’t Be Fooled by Outliers!

    Trump-vs.-Biden Polls: Don’t Be Fooled by Outliers!

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    Beware claims that either of these men is “winning.”
    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    The latest Rassmussen national poll on the 2024 presidential contest shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by ten points in a two-way contest, and by 12 points in a five-way race. Polls are not predictions, to be sure, but to place this data into an appropriate context, the last time a presidential candidate won the national popular vote by ten points was 30 years ago, when Ronald Reagan won 49 states. Everything we know about contemporary politics indicates the 2024 election will be close, just like all but one of the presidential elections in this century. So the odds are very high that the Raz poll is an outlier, which would hardly be a novel finding; FiveThirtyEight dropped Rasmussen Reports from its polling averages and even from its pollster rankings this year after the firm failed to answer questions about its methodology.

    To cite a more generally applicable example: The last two batches of presidential-battleground-state polls were from Bloomberg–Morning Consult (mid-April) and The Hill–Emerson (late April). The former showed Trump leading in six of seven states (all but Michigan) in both two-way and five-way polls, and the latter showed Trump winning everywhere. If you weren’t paying close attention, it might appear that a modest trend toward Biden that began shortly after the State of the Union address had stopped and even reversed; there was some chatter along those lines from Trump-friendly parts of the punditocracy.

    In reality, it was the identity of the pollsters rather than any fundamental trend that created this perception; the previous battleground-state surveys from Bloomberg–Morning Consult and The Hill–Emerson in March showed very similar findings. That doesn’t mean either set of data is “biased” or “inaccurate;” we don’t actually know what the “real” numbers are. It does mean that these polls should be assessed alongside similar polls from other outlets (in this case, CBS News) showing Biden doing significantly better. And instead of changing one’s perspective every time a new poll comes out, it makes more sense to look at polling averages that diminish the exaggerated importance of outliers. That’s particularly important in horse-race polling. Staring intently at a single poll can be beneficial in terms of understanding underlying trends, demographic-group preferences, and issue landscapes. But if the question is “Who’s ahead?” and the race is close enough to make precision matter, stick with the averages.

    Polling averages aren’t infallible, of course. Their accuracy may depend on the database from which they are drawn, and some may well be “skewed.” The Rasmussen poll mentioned above, for example, is included in RealClearPolitics averages but excluded from those at FiveThirtyEight.

    Overall, it’s reasonably clear that the Biden-Trump race remains very close in terms of the national popular vote with Trump maintaining a small advantage in winning enough battleground states to secure the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. That’s also what other metrics like candidate favorability, partisan affiliation, and above all recent history would suggest. It should require some pretty clear indicators suggesting otherwise before anyone fairly concludes Trump or Biden is “winning,” particularly this far away from November. When you see someone leaping on individual polls or even short-term trends in averages to make bold and conclusive predictions, you should be aware you are in the presence of spin rather than analysis.


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  • California Senate Polls: Schiff Helps Garvey Edge Out Fellow Democrats

    California Senate Polls: Schiff Helps Garvey Edge Out Fellow Democrats

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    In addition to the 15 states holding presidential contests on Super Tuesday, there are also a handful of down-ballot primaries on March 5. The contest that’s drawn the most national interest is the U.S. Senate primary in California, a complex and expensive battle to identify general-election candidates for the seat previously held by the late Dianne Feinstein.

    California utilizes a so-called top-two primary system in which candidates (below the presidential level) compete for spots on the November ballot without regard to party affiliation. So there could be two Democrats, two Republicans, or one of each in the general election. This system has frequently led to candidates trying to “box out” their most dangerous opponents by keeping them from making the top two in the primary vote.

    This sort of gamesmanship has been pivotal in the 2024 Senate race. Given the Democratic Party’s dominant position in California (no Republican has won a statewide race since 2006), the general election will almost certainly be won by a Democrat. But it makes all the difference in the world whether there are one or two Democrats competing in November.

    The longtime front-runner in the race, Los Angeles–area Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, very much wants his November opponent to be Republican Steve Garvey, a baseball star in Los Angeles and San Diego, whom he would trounce without much question. So he has been devoting a sizable portion of his massive campaign treasury (he’s raised about $50 million so far) to attacks on Garvey designed to consolidate GOP voters behind the former ballplayer, as opposed to either of the other two significant Republicans in the contest. Schiff is hoping that Garvey can box out his Democratic colleague Katie Porter, the Elizabeth Warren protégé from Orange County who has stronger progressive credentials and is herself a prodigious fundraiser (pulling in an estimated $24 million for the Senate race). An X factor in the race is Schiff and Porter’s distinguished Bay Area colleague Barbara Lee, whose age (she will turn 78 in July) and poor fundraising have offset her sterling progressive reputation.

    In addition to Schiff’s promotion of Garvey, Porter has also had to contend with $10 million in attack ads from a group backed by cryptocurrency executives angry at her criticisms of the industry. A wrinkle in the campaign has been an upsurge of progressive fury at Schiff for his staunch backing of Israel in its war against Hamas; Lee was an early supporter of a permanent cease-fire and Porter has supported a more conditional cease-fire effort.

    The polls show that Schiff’s strategic effort to boost Garvey at Porter’s expense is working. In the RealClearPolitics polling averages for this race, Schiff is at 26.5 percent, Garvey is at 20.5 percent, Porter is at 18.3 percent, and Lee is at 9 percent. Garvey has been steadily trending upwards in the polls as Schiff’s campaign love-bombed him; in the latest UC Berkeley–Los Angeles Times survey, the Republican actually led the field with 27 percent, two points ahead of his frenemy Schiff and eight points ahead of Porter.

    A big imponderable about this primary is turnout. Whatever its merits, the top-two system has done nothing to improve the Golden State’s reputation for poor turnout in primaries, nor have such voter-friendly enhancements as automatic voter registration (in most counties, at least) and the dispatch of mail ballots to all registered voters without the need for an excuse or an application (voters also have in-person options if they don’t want to vote by mail). This year’s turnout may also be depressed by two totally uncompetitive presidential contests and an unusually early date (California primaries are usually held in June but were moved up to coincide with the presidential primaries). Politico looked at the pace of ballots returned early and predicted very low turnout:

    California is lagging behind the 2022 midterm return rate, when the state had more ballots returned by this point in the race. Ultimately, 2022 saw a 33 percent turnout.

    There’s dozens of factors that could affect the state’s final turnout number, but [turnout monitor Paul] Mitchell is cautiously speculating that only 29 percent of California’s registered voters will turn in their ballots, falling below the current record low of 31 percent in 2012.

    Low turnouts in California have traditionally been good for Republicans, which is another factor that might help Garvey, whose own campaign and debate appearances have been decidedly unimpressive. Many Democrats have mixed feelings about the contest. On the one hand, a Schiff-Garvey general election might free up many millions of dollars that would otherwise go to a Senate race between two Democrats. More available donor money would benefit candidates in races more critical to the Democratic Party’s power (notably six competitive U.S. House races, five of them for seats now controlled by Republicans). On the other hand, strategic issues aside, Schiff is not an inspiring choice for many California progressives, as my colleague Rebecca Traister explained in her recent overview of the race:

    Porter does not always play well with others in her own party — including Nancy Pelosi, the fearsome éminence grise of both California politics and the U.S. House — and has been accused by multiple former employees of being a tough, perhaps even abusive, boss. Lee is a beloved hero of the left who has not participated in a competitive election in years and at 77 is a dicey choice to fill a seat recently vacated by a woman in possession of the philosopher’s stone. And Schiff? Schiff is fine if you want a warrior on behalf of the meager gruel of status quo politics, a candidate handpicked by the previous generation of Democratic leadership to further its dubious legacy.

    If the race for the two spots in the general election is very close, it could be a while before we know the outcome: California is a state that counts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day so long as they are received at local election offices within seven days. Another strange wrinkle is that voters will be selecting a top two not just for the full Senate term that begins in 2025, but — separately — for the last two months of Feinstein’s term (being filled until November by appointed place-holder Laphonza Butler, who chose not to pursue an elected term). It’s possible that confused voters will produce different top twos for the full and truncated terms. That would be an unlikely but fitting end to this odd Senate race full of misdirection and borderline deceit.


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  • Biden vs. Trump Polls: Joe’s Battleground Problem

    Biden vs. Trump Polls: Joe’s Battleground Problem

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    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    In assessing the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on tap for November 2024, it is important to remember that their national popular-vote standing as illustrated by various polls (some head-to-head, others featuring possible additional candidates) is not necessarily the determining factor in the outcome. Thanks to our Electoral College system, it’s entirely possible to be elected president while losing the popular vote; indeed, that’s how we got George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. Hillary Clinton beat Trump by a 2.1 percent popular-vote margin and still lost the election, and in 2020, Trump came within 42,000 votes of putting together an Electoral College majority even though Biden beat him handily in the national popular vote (by 4.5 percent).

    The simplest way to explain this dichotomy is that Democratic votes are distributed less efficiently among the states. That’s not an eternal truth; John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 overperformed their popular-vote margins in the Electoral College. But you can understand why Democrats fear that Biden needs to actually be well ahead of Trump in the national popular vote in order to win, and why polls showing Trump ahead or the contest tied alarm them. This concern has been reinforced by periodic polling of perceived battleground states (typically the ones that were very close in 2020) that show Biden in trouble.

    In the most recent batch of battleground state polls, from Bloomberg–Morning Consult, Biden trailed Trump in a head-to-head matchup by nine points in North Carolina, six points in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada, four points in Wisconsin, and two points in Pennsylvania. In a five-way trial heat including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein, Trump’s lead ballooned to ten points in North Carolina, nine points in Arizona and (shockingly) Pennsylvania, seven points in Georgia and Nevada, and six points in Wisconsin. The five-way race actually shaved a point off Trump’s lead in Michigan.

    The survey did not have a national popular-vote component, but a recent Morning Consult tracking poll had Trump leading Biden by just one point, reinforcing the impression that Democrats could again have a “vote efficiency” problem in November.

    Emerson has released its own battery of battleground polls (for the Hill) a bit earlier in February, and it showed a slightly less dire picture for Biden. The pollster had Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup by six points in Georgia and Nevada, by three points in Arizona, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and by two points in Michigan and Pennsylvania. In a five-way contest with Kennedy, West, and Stein in the running, though, Emerson shows deep problems for Biden, who trails Trump by ten points in Nevada, nine points in Georgia and North Carolina, six points in Arizona, five points in Pennsylvania, four points in Wisconsin, and three points in Michigan. Emerson’s national poll in February had Trump leading by a mere one point in a head-to-head race and by two points in the five-way contest. Again, the indicators are that even in a close national race, the president is trailing significantly in the states likely to determine the Electoral College winner.

    Keeping in mind that Biden won six of these seven states (all of them other than North Carolina) in 2020, these numbers are discouraging for Democrats, albeit highly premature given the ever-changing landscape of the presidential field and the galvanizing events that could take place between now and November. It’s also worth remembering that state polling often involves small samples that make it less reliable than national polling (no Democrat is likely to forget the state polling in 2016, which showed Hillary Clinton in command in several key states she lost, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin). But the danger signs are there that Biden may need to have a distinct battleground-state strategy even if he pulls into a national lead over Trump and any other rivals.


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