Whether you like it or not, this is not good news for President Biden.
He has been trailing in national and battleground state polls for months. His approval ratings are at their lowest on record for a first-term president. He is struggling among young, black and Hispanic voters. And all this against an opponent facing multiple criminal trials, including one that could be decided this week.
But this news isn't all bad for Biden. At least, it's not all bad. that Too bad. The race is still pretty close. Close enough that Biden would very likely win if the election were held tomorrow. And of course, the election isn't going to be held tomorrow. There are still more than five months left before Biden can return.
All of this adds up to some reason to be optimistic about Biden's chances of winning. Rightly or wrongly, this issue is probably not getting as much attention as it should.
Election Map
Are the elections close? Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
If Biden wins these battleground states, probably Become familiar He will be re-elected as president. If he holds on to every state he won by more than six percentage points in 2020, that would give him a total of exactly 270 electoral votes. That means he could lose states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio and still win.
It's true that Donald J. Trump is leading in most polls in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, but the race is close in these three states.
Recent polls by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College have given Trump an average lead of one percentage point among likely voters in the three states. Both the 538 and RealClearPolitics polling averages show Trump leading by just one point in those states, and he doesn't appear to be leading by more than two points in any of them.
As a result, Biden is now within two points of winning in states with 270 electoral votes. In the long run, a two-point margin in a key state is closer than the elections that went to Election Day in 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008. If the election were held tomorrow, it would not be surprising to see Biden win these three states by narrow margins.
In fact, if the election were held tomorrow, Biden could still win even if the polls were more accurate than usual, because the polls wouldn't have to be that far off for him to win.
One reason Biden's tenacity in these states has gone unnoticed is that many organizations, including The Times, conduct polls in all six battleground states. Biden trails slightly in the three northern states, while Trump often claims large leads in the three Sun Belt states. Taken together, these numbers are clearly bad for Biden. But the overall margins in these six states may overstate his challenge.
Demographics
Why is Biden competitive in the northern battleground states? White voters and older voters.
In this year's Times/Siena poll, Biden's approval rating is just about a percentage point lower among white voters than it was in 2020. By comparison, his approval rating is also slightly better among voters over 65 than it was in 2020. Other polls have shown similar trends.
What has gone unnoticed is Biden's strong support among white and older voters, which will make up about 70% of the electorate in November and will likely be even higher in the northern battleground states where Biden hopes to win. And voters over 65 will outnumber those under 30.
In a way, Biden has already done the part that is usually hard for a Democrat. Now he just needs to do the easy part: win over the usual big Democratic votes among young people, blacks and Hispanic voters.
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We have explained that the Democratic strength in the special election was due primarily to their significant advantage among the most engaged and highest-turnout voters, so a big Democratic victory in the special election does nothing to actually negate Biden's weakness in the general election polls.
But his strength among high-turnout voters is still a key strength. I wrote about this just last week, so I won't dwell on it too much. But it suggests Biden could still win back many of the less-engaged voters who support Trump in the polls. And even if he didn't, maybe many of those disengaged defectors will simply not show up to vote.
It's still months away
Polls are not perfect. They have been wrong before and they will be wrong this time. They don't need to be way off for Biden to pull off a bare-knuckle victory.
But even if the polls are exactly “right” — meaning that if the election were held tomorrow, Trump would win by the exact margin suggested by recent polls — Biden would still have a very good chance of winning in November.
Five-plus months is, after all, a very long time in presidential politics. There are billions of dollars in advertising, debates, a possible conviction, and countless other events yet to come. This year, it is even easier to imagine the possibility of a shaky race, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a host of so-called “double haters,” and Trump's reliance on young and non-white voters who traditionally support Democrats. While the issue of democracy may not dominate the news today, it will almost certainly be a central theme in the final weeks, especially if Trump is in the lead.
Biden may be down a bit today, but he still has a long way to go.