From WaPo: Post-debate Battleground State Polling
While the presidential debate fallout has greatly shifted the narratives, what does the polling say about the state of the post-debate 2024 race?
From Washington Post:
We have gathered the best available national and state-level polling data, and factored how citizens in each state voted in the last two presidential elections, to calculate whom voters currently favor in the presidential race.
Donald Trump is leading in 6 of the 7 battleground states that are most likely to determine the outcome of the election. The polls are particularly close in the first three battlegrounds below, meaning our average is within a normal-sized polling error of 3.5 points and either a Trump or President Biden victory is plausible. In the other four battlegrounds, the candidates’ polling leads are larger, but the race is still close.
Graphic from Washington Post
The current affliction is that these polls are all well and good, but they were all taken prior to the news conference.
What about the polls taken *AFTER* the most recent Current Thing?Report
*extreme Bones McCoy voice* “Dammit, man, I’m running a website here, not a time machine…”
In all seriousness, I think you’ll see the pattern hold though. The public, or at least the polling public, has been ahead of the coverage on concerns about Biden so there wasn’t a huge swing even with massive shift in coverage because they were already where the press is just now getting, and Trump’s much-discussed polling “ceiling” also seems to be in place and he isn’t really getting a huge boost from any of this, leaving the fundamentals of the 2024 race pretty much as they have been all along.Report
So things can’t get any worse?
That’s comforting.Report
Heh. How were the voters ahead of the coverage when there were absolutely no signs of trouble from Biden at all?Report
That’s a good point and I think that the worst still hasn’t made it through the snake.
Let’s assume three groups of folks:
1. People who watch CNN/MSNBC or NBC/ABC/CBS for their news
2. People who watch Fox or OANN or Newsmax or the even crazier ones
3. People who watch ESPN
(This is an oversimplification, of course… “What about chicks?”, you could ask. “Women refuse to watch ESPN! They hate it!”, you could point out. Sure, sure. Just roll with it.)
The #2s were all over Biden having slowed down a hair. Every single time that he climbed the stairs to Air Force One and tripped? Heck, they made memes about it. Donald Trump teeing off, cut away to a golf ball flying through the air, photoshop the golf ball hitting Biden in the noggin, have Biden trip. Lol.
They all sent these to each other and a small number of them made it to the #3s and the #1s who have taken it upon themselves to police the memes of the #2s. (“SECRET SERVICE? HELLO! I HAVE A MEME WHERE THE HEAD OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH IS BEING PERCUSSIVELY ATTACKED BY A REPUBLICAN!”)
For the most part, the #3s only occasionally got a glance at the “Biden is soooooo old” stuff (and only the #2 adjacent). Most of the #3s would never, ever, see a Biden story. Why would you? It’s not like they talk about Biden on ESPN. Heck, that’s a reason to *WATCH* ESPN! It’s a place to go where you don’t hear about Biden!
The #1s? They heard about it, sure… but remember the SotU address? Biden is fine. What about Trump?
Anyway, Biden’s status has now escaped containment.
The #2s aren’t the only ones who know about it. The #1s know about it now and find themselves either passionately giving speeches about how they don’t care if Biden were in a coma, they’d still vote for him. They don’t care if Biden were in a wheelchair and getting fed from a tube, they’d still vote for him. They don’t care if he were a zombie like from Dawn of the Dead, they’d still vote for him. They don’t care if he were a can of ashes being scattered over a quiet lake near Scranton, Pennsylvania, they’d still vote for him… or they’re saying stuff like “I can’t believe that he was this bad!” and then coming up with a handful of theories about why they didn’t know. “The news media didn’t tell us!” or “His staff covered it up!” or “There’s a conspiracy!” or the like.
The #3s are seeing the information for the first time but their surprise is a little more muted. I mean, they haven’t thought about Biden since 2020. They look at Biden and say “Dang! He’s slowed down!” And then, from there, they look at the #2s and the #1s and see how they’re responding.
And the #2s are yelling “TOLD YOU SO!” and the #1s are saying “but there were absolutely no signs of trouble until now!”
And more #3s are hearing about it every day.
Even if all of the #2s have known about it since 2015.Report
Basically all my IRL social circle is made up of non-terminally-online liberal Democrats. They have generally been aware of and increasingly nervous about Biden’s signs of decline, and fully aware that the official white house spokespeople should be believed about as much as your average sales guy, but they were hoping for the best. Once they saw unfiltered Biden at the debate, they now fear the worst. Some of them are quite upset at Biden now for clinging to the candidacy and potentially handing the election to Trump.
I don’t know where Pinky is finding people who thought “there were absolutely no signs of trouble from Biden at all” who now think that he needs to go.Report
How many of them will vote for Trump instead of Biden?
How many will stay home?
How many will vote for Biden regardless?Report
Why do you ask?Report
Because if they end up voting Biden anyway, all the “worry” is just pointless.
I mean, I’m also in the “worried it will tip the election” camp myself, but I will still work like hell to get Biden elected.
That’s why I was clarifying your and Jaybird’s orientation because if you guys are in category #2 (won’t vote for our guy no matter what) then your opinions of our guy are just that, opinions.
What I’m not hearing anywhere is an argument.
An argument for why a persuadable voter should choose Trump over Biden.
But I AM hearing a lot of arguments for why they should choose Biden over Trump.Report
“Because if they end up voting Biden anyway, all the “worry” is just pointless.”
What a stupid idea, that what liberal Democrats do with this information is all that matters.Report
FWIW, I still think most – perhaps a vast majority – of Biden voters worried or otherwise will show up to vote for him or at least against Trump. I suspect this number and cohort is under polling right now because they are in “worried” stage and not in “have to decided right now this minute” stage yet which means they don’t want to talk about it whereas Trump’s much ballyhoo’d “polling ceiling” is because his folks are loud and proud all the time in all weather.
Will the 50K-100K of those voters in PA, WI, NV, GA, NC, MI, and AZ that are going to decide this election do that? That is the question. 44K of them decided 2020, 80K of them decided 2016, often by who did and didn’t stay home, and by voting against a candidate more than for one. We will see.Report
I agree this is the only rational way to look at the situation and the only factor that should determine what to do with Biden. If there is reason to believe that those people are more likely to go Biden then you keep him in no matter how ugly it gets. If on the other hand these people are not going to show up it needs to be a full court press to convince him to drop out. Safe blue state, blue voters shouldn’t even register.Report
You will convince the populace long before you convince Joe Biden, so – in my humble but accurate opinion – therein should lay the effort.Report
Well, maybe we disagree on that. If we have a repeat of 2016 Biden will go from savior to among the most infamous losers in the history of the Democrat party. And frankly he’ll deserve to.Report
Agreed. And with such a fine record for his first term it’s awfully high risk for him to stay in but you can easily see why he’s so furiously bridling at the pressure to step down.
I think David Frums article (now there’s a guy who’s come around from the Bush lesser days) is quite on point in the Atlantic today.Report
Yes. Turnout is key, which is why party members like me want to focus on why our guy is better than their guy and why it matters.Report
In my “three groups of voters” paradigm, the #1s will be voting Biden no matter what, if they vote.
So when it comes to the #1s, the only thing that fluctuates is “if they vote”.
These people can be energized or they can be depressed.
So, for any especially interesting piece of new information, you can ask “is this likely to energize the electorate? Is it likely to depress the electorate? Is it likely to make no difference whatsoever?”
And the Biden being surprisingly old thing strikes me as vaguely depressing. The True Believers, of course, are making big speeches about how they’d vote for Joe Biden even if (insert “I intended this to be a strawman!” example here) but not all of the #1s are True Believers. Some of them are just believers. Some of them merely want to believe. They’d *NEVER* vote for a Republican, mind… but life is busy and Tuesdays are crazy sometimes and this is a safe state anyway and besides I forgot.
And the counter-argument that a TRUE BELIEVER would never do this is true, but uninteresting. I’m not talking about True Believers anymore. I’m talking about people who, if they vote, will vote Blue.
And pretending that these people are closet Republicans is a good way to depress them even more, if you ask me.Report
“but they were hoping for the best”
That’s probably what I’m not taking into account.Report
That describes me. And I’ve made peace with the fact that if he is the Democrat on the ballot in November I am going to vote for him even if it is a full on Weekend at Bernie’s situation.
What I’m not is naive enough to project my decision onto the swing state low info voters that will decide it nor innumerate enough not to understand that 10,000 voters in Michigan will be way more important than close to a million in Maryland and few million in California at that.Report
Trump’s authoritarian lean appeals to the right. Swing voters, not so much.
A new poll shows how Democrats’ focus on Project 2025 could get traction with crucial voters — specifically, the “double haters.”
From the article:
“The Monmouth University poll is one of the most extensive looks to date at Americans’ attitudes toward authoritarianism. And like others before it, the poll shows that Republicans are significantly more inclined toward the idea.
After asking a battery of questions to gauge voters’ authoritarian proclivities, it found that 7 in 10 voters who liked Trump rated “above average” on its authoritarian-belief scale. That’s compared with about 3 in 10 voters who liked Biden.
(The questions included whether we should “get rid of the rotten apples who are ruining everything,” whether we need “a strong, determined leader who will crush evil,” and whether it is “the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning the country from within.”)
But the double haters were even less likely than Democrats to embrace such ideas. Overall, just 2 in 10 rated above average on authoritarian beliefs.
While just 4 percent of voters who like Trump rated “low” on their authoritarian beliefs, a 56 percent majority of double haters did.”
…
“Narratives” aren’t things that just arise spontaneously out of thin air. They are created and nurtured, amplified and distributed by people like us.
We have the power to shape this.Report
Same here in IL. Given the choice of 2 unfit candidates, I’m going with the one who’ll be surrounded by people who have the best interests of all Americans in mind.Report
I don’t wanna though!
Is that really my remaining reason? That, and that my vote doesn’t matter in MD? I’d like to think I’m being principled, but I don’t know. It’s been so long since I hoped in politics that I honestly forgot to factor it in (see above); have I also lost principle?
Honestly though, it’s not a principle that’s holding me back or prodding me forward. I would not vote for Trump if he’s running against Harris, but I may have to vote for him if he’s running against Biden, and that’s not a matter of principle. It’s a matter of national safety. I’m missing the feeling of making principled decisions, but that doesn’t mean I’m making unprincipled ones, if that makes sense.Report
“I may have to vote for him”
There it is.Report
Pretending that there are no #3s is a great way to be surprised by the existence of #3s.Report
#3 doesn’t exist.
If someone can look at Trump and decide that he is no more a threat to democracy than Biden, then it doesn’t matter who #3 is.
That single decision tells us the following about #3:
#3 doesn’t think trying to stage a violent overthrow of an election is worse than whatever Biden does;
#3 doesn’t think that a lawless SCOTUS giving a green light to presidential immunity is worse than whatever Biden does;
#3 doesn’t think that abandoning NATO or condoning naked aggression by Russia is worse than whatever Biden does;
#3 doesn’t think that Project 2025 and its promise of Christian Nationalism is worse than whatever Biden does;
So really, #3 is functionally identical to #2.Report
And those are all reasons to run a candidate who isn’t drooling.
If you aren’t going to act like this is an existential threat, you should understand why others might not believe you when you say that it’s an existential threat.Report
By definition, no one who would vote for #3 is a “gettable” voter.Report
National safety? Trump was caught with nuclear weapons stuff stored in the can at Mar-a-lago.
My point was in a race where neither guy is really going to be in charge, I’ll take the guy whose aides aren’t aiming for a radical realignment of this country.Report
Nah, I get where you went with your point, but I was just applying the point to my thinking.Report
I guess I should ask you how you define national safety.Report
You can deduce the answer, I’m sure.Report
I would like to think that if Biden stays on the ballot at this point he is doing it from a belief that all issues notwithstanding he is the best positioned to win, and an understanding that he will resign shortly thereafter. If he is actually intending to govern a full term I think that would say some not great things about him personally. Of course this is well into the realm of unprovable speculation.Report
The voters really are in a trick bag this fall.Report
“…and an understanding that he will resign shortly thereafter”
because he’s demonstrating so much humility and willingness to listen these days? What would make you think he’ll suddenly like the idea of stepping down?Report
Like I said, I’ve made my peace with all possibilities including the worst case scenarios.Report
Man, I can’t *WAIT* for Monday’s polls!Report
In Contrast Marist has Biden up 2, Ispos has him tied, and 538 is giving him a slight edge for victory (but it is basically tied).
At this point, it should be clear to everyone that Biden is not dropping out but the hair on fire brigade doesn’t know how to calm down from panic mode.
I also find it interesting that party elites and bigwigs are more on Biden dropping out than the base or progressives.Report
This is almost funny. You can see the guy saying “well, these are useless” as he presses “send”.
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