Joe Biden is continuing his snail-like progress toward a dead heat with Donald Trump in polling this week. The RealClearPolitics polling averages for a national head-to-head contest between the two presidents now show Trump up by a mere 0.2 percent (45.5 to 45.3 percent), his smallest lead in these averages dating back to last October. If you took a very outlierish Rasmussen Poll giving Trump an eight-point lead out of the equation, Biden would actually be ahead. As it is, he leads Trump in the most recent surveys by Reuters-Ipsos, I&I-TIPP, Data for Progress, NPR-PBS-Marist, and Quinnipiac, a pretty impressive collection of pollsters (all but I&I-TIPP are in the top-25 outfits, according to FiveThirtyEight’s ratings).
Trump is maintaining a slightly larger lead (1.9 percent) in the national five-way polls that include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein, per RCP’s averages. RFK Jr. holds 10 percent of the 13.2 percent going to non-major-party candidates. So the larger field continues to help Trump and hurt Biden, albeit marginally.
Battleground-state polling has been sparse in recent weeks; the last public polls in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin were from a March 24 Wall Street Journal survey. So Trump maintains his relatively robust leads in all those states. New polling in North Carolina (from High Point University and Quinnipiac) shows Trump’s lead in that state shrinking slightly to 4 percent. And fresh data from Pennsylvania via Franklin & Marshall has given Biden a slight (0.1 percent) lead in that state in the RCP averages. The trends for Biden overall are positive, albeit very slightly and slowly so.
In terms of where the numbers might go as we approach November, there are some even more positive sights for the incumbent. A fascinating new national survey from NORC published by FiveThirtyEight looked at how demonstrated propensity to vote affected presidential-candidate preferences, and the findings are potentially significant:
“When we broke out respondents by their voting history, we found dramatic differences in whom they support for president in 2024. President Joe Biden performed much better among frequent voters, while Trump had a large lead among people who haven’t voted recently. Specifically, among respondents who voted in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 general elections, Biden outpaced Trump 50 percent to 39 percent. But among respondents who were old enough to vote but voted in none of those three elections, Trump crushed Biden 44 percent to 26 percent.”
This survey reinforces evidence elsewhere that the traditional Democratic reliance on “marginal voters” has ended, and that now it’s Republicans who need an unusually high-turnout election to get Trump’s supporters to the polls. In the short term, this could mean that when pollsters begin to shift from registered-voter to likely-voter samples, Biden will probably get a boost (the sort of boost Republican candidates used to count on) in the comparative numbers. Whether that carries over to the actual results in November may depend on overall turnout levels, with Democrats holding an unusual advantage among the voters most likely to show up at the polls.
There are, of course, many other factors that will influence the direction of this contest, including the strength, wealth, and wisdom of the campaigns and of the national and state parties supporting them. But one thing to watch is whether the Kennedy candidacy, which is marginally hurting Biden right now, gets onto the ballot in all or most of the battleground states. At present, Kennedy’s campaign claims it has enough signatures to gain ballot access in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, and it’s in a dispute with Nevada over an early deadline for identifying a vice-presidential candidate that it missed, which may land in court. If Kennedy does gain the ballot access he needs, the big question will be whether his conspiracy-theory-drenched appeal has the sort of staying power that non-major-party candidates usually lack. If he fades, it will likely benefit Biden.
Real-world developments outside the campaign trail could matter as well. Team Biden has to worry about signs of renewed inflation. And all of Trump’s efforts to avoid a preelection criminal trial appear to have failed, at least in New York.
For now, this contest seems to be back to square one: very close and subject to a lot of cross-currents and events we can’t really predict.
Cranky Observer–
I am starting to wonder the same thing. Rove grossly underestimated the amount of money the
Democrats would raise when he laid out this campaign two years ago. I think we can definitely expect some negative tricks and meanness, but as far as having a pulse on the American people, I think Karen Hughes is more the person we should be watching out for. Has anyone else noticed that Bush has been better since she rejoined the campaign in earnest? She definitely has the emotional pulse of some of Bush’s base. Old stories here in Texas were of the rivalry between Hughes and Rove…wonder if they are true.
The Democrats just need to move quickly as these things arrive, or throw out some things of their own first, so that Bush is more on the defensive…
I think Rove’s recent appearances on talk shows, etc…shows that they are getting a little panicky.
We just need to keep working–fast and furious!
> We can be assured that Rove’s end game
> ground war will be ruthless, unethical, viscious and
> full-bore.
I have a harder and harder time accepting the “Rove as evil genius”, with the emphasis on genius, meme. As Markos has observed, Kerry managed to evaporate $200 million worth of pre-nomination spending in 90 minutes at the first debate. And if Rove has some genius-like October surprise he has exactly 16 days and ticking to pull it off, which isn’t much.
Cranky
Like Teresa, I’m a little concerned. After reading the NYT Bush profile by Suskind, I’m also fearful that this info from Rove could be a strategic sideways leak. There was some scary talk in that article about volumes of new registrations coming from churches, and a figure of 4 million adamantly pro-Bush evangelicals who WERE NOT registered in 2000.
We can be assured that Rove’s end game ground war will be ruthless, unethical, viscious and full-bore.
Let’s not let ourselves be lulled by ANY Kerry numbers’ strength into not giving our fullest GOTV effort — and then some.
I think the 4 point margin to protect against the expected uncommitted/independent break for the challenger makes great sense. It’s just logical given the well established pattern among late deciders.
We must be on the look-out for whatever Rove has in mind to get himself a 4 point margin in the next two weeks. Right now he is either tied or down a couple of points.
It seems clear that Rove needs an actual lead and an average turnout. My only question is, what day will the inevitable terror alert come out—-1, 2, or 3 days before the election? And will it specifically involve Ohio? This seems the most likely October surprise.
The question everybody needs to be asking is where is Bush going to get any NEW voters?? Remember he lost the populat vote in 2000 and there hasn’t been any announcements about any voting block that has changed their minds about him since 2000.. Its just not in the numbers and he know its.. I do believe, millions of republicans will crossover and vote for Kerry..
Sounds like classic Rove disinfo.
My read is the opposite: the Republican campaign on Kerry has sowed enough doubts in swing voters’ minds, that unless Kerry is at least 2 points ahead going into election day then he might well lose.
Also there is the Ralph Nader factor.
It seems to be coming down to Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Of which Kerry seems to be closing the deal with PA, but losing OH and Fla. W. Virginia seems to already be gone.
WI is the other likely defector to the Bush camp: that remark about Lambert v. Lambeau field has cost Kerry big time with Green Bay fans, apparently (Kerry got it wrong).
I hope I am wrong, and I sense real disquiet about Bush amongst the (Republican) parents of my American friends (in London) but the world opinion is so solidly against Bush (except in Israel) that I think it blinds us to the reality.
I wait for Rove’s October Surprise, and expect it will be a doozy.
Does anyone know why http://www.pollingreport.com only reports the “likely voters” poll numbers on their website and not the “registered voters” poll numbers?
Dear Alan,
My first reaction was to this inside scoop that the Bush campaign believes it needs a 4 point lead going in was elation. My second was to suspect that that this was a rumor purposely placed by the Bush campaign. Mr. Rove is famous for this type of tactic. Please don’t let hope distract us from working our tails off for the next three weeks!
Ruy, very interesting comment from Rove.
Check this out…
Oct 17, 2004
John Kerry for President
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?oref=login&pagewanted=1&hp
Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It’s on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.
Was it not Rove who, way back in 2000, raised eyebrows when he said that Bush would, “win in a walk”? What a difference four years make, eh?
That’s really not clear enough. If Bush has a 4 pt lead in the nat’l head to heads, but less than that in the swing states that give Kerry 270, then Bush won’t win.
Apparently Rove doesn’t want to talk about the “T” word (turnout) either. Consideriing the margins Bush had in 2000 in the last week, what he really needs is fairly consistent margins across polls, and possibly one of 5-8 points.
Question on polls.
The campaigns seem to have sharper, and perhaps different, polling results. I infer this from comments such as that which this post attributes to Karl Rove. It must mean that Rove/BC04 have a different idea of who the “likely voters” are than that of the nationally published pollsters.
Why is that so?