It’s Biden vs. Trump.
For me, that’s the only real takeaway from Super Tuesday, when President Biden and Donald J. Trump won almost all of the delegates. It will be another week or two before they are officially nominated, but at that point the primaries are effectively over. The general elections will begin soon.
On paper, Mr. Biden should be the favorite. He is an incumbent president running for re-election against the backdrop of a sufficiently healthy economy and against an opponent accused of multiple federal crimes.
But the polls show Mr. Trump starting the general election campaign in the lead.
Mr Trump’s lead is modest but clear. Over the past four months, he has been leading in nearly every poll in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, as well as the states he carried in 2020 – enough to give him 283 electoral votes and the presidency. He is also ahead in most national polls over the past month, including a New York Times/Siena College poll this past weekend.
This is not what many expected from a rematch between Biden and Trump, especially after Democrats were resilient in the midterms and stood out in special elections by campaigning on issues like democracy and abortion.
But Mr. Trump still wins, and for one simple reason: Mr. Biden is very unpopular. His approval ratings for the job are stuck in the upper 30s, and voters simply don’t view him as favorably as they once did. Nearly three-quarters of voters, including a majority of Democrats, say he is too old to be an effective president.
In the end, Mr. Biden could well prevail by capitalizing on issues like abortion and democracy. Historically, early polls are not particularly predictive of the final result. Many voters are not paying enough attention yet, and once the general election campaign begins, there will be every opportunity for the Biden campaign to refocus voters on more favorable issues. Events over the next eight months will certainly be important too – from the impact of a gradually recovering economy to circumstances at the border and conflicts abroad.
But just because the early polls aren’t necessarily predictive doesn’t mean they aren’t worth taking seriously. Voters know these candidates very well. Mr Biden is the president, Mr Trump is a former president and both candidates have been in public life for decades. And based on everything voters have seen, they say they don’t like Mr. Biden and don’t think he’s a very effective president. This is no small thing.
Democrats have won a lot of elections recently, but not like this. Since Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, Democrats have stuck to a simple formula: Nominate acceptable mainstream candidates and expect voters to reject right-wing Republicans. Mr Biden himself was such a candidate in 2020, and even then he narrowly defeated Mr Trump – by less than a percentage point in some key battleground states. His basic strategy hasn’t changed, but his favorability rating is 14 points lower.
Democrats have performed best recently among lower-turnout voters, which tend to be made up of engaged, older and well-educated voters. The polls suggest that Mr. Biden’s weakness is focused almost entirely on the less engaged and less educated portion of the electorate, including many young, black and Hispanic voters. These voters don’t often vote in special elections or midterms — but they vote more often in presidential elections.
There may be good news for Mr. Biden in his extreme weakness with less engaged voters: His campaign can hope that they are simply not paying attention, and could return to his side once voters tune in to the race. For example, my colleague Claire Cain Miller interviewed a voter who said abortion was the most important issue but blamed Mr. Biden for the loss of abortion rights in America. That’s exactly the kind of voter a campaign hopes to persuade.
Mr. Biden may also hope that Mr. Trump plays a larger role in voters’ minds as the election approaches. Mr Trump’s strength in the polls is not because voters like him – he is viewed just as negatively as he was four years ago. In fact, his ratings are almost as high as they were before the last election. Many voters are likely to look positively on the economy during his time in office, given post-pandemic inflation and Mr Biden’s outlook. On the other hand, a majority of voters say they believe Mr. Trump has committed serious federal crimes.
Mr. Trump’s continued unpopularity presents an agonizing choice for millions of voters who liked and supported Mr. Biden in the last election, now having to choose between two candidates they don’t like, a group sometimes referred to as “doubleheaders.” Haters” is called. The election also presents a challenge for pollsters, as these voters are likely to have more volatile preferences. Many of them may not make a firm decision until absolutely necessary – at the ballot box.
No one can say what these voters will do in November. Many may ultimately choose not to make a decision at all, whether by staying home or voting for a minority party candidate. What we do know is that these voters were crucial to Mr. Biden’s victory in 2020, but that they are not fans of him today and are now telling pollsters that they support Mr. Trump in sufficient numbers to give him the lead To provide. This is worth taking very seriously.
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2024-03-06 10:04:16
www.nytimes.com