Poll Shows Joe Biden Up By 5 – In the topsy-turvy world of 2024 presidential polling Trump supporters and Biden supporters each have their pick of polls to say their candidate is winning.
This time, an Economist/YouGov poll shows Joe Biden up by five points over Donald Trump among registered voters in a hypothetical matchup.
The poll of 1,293 voters was taken between Sept. 23-26 and put Biden in the lead by a 45%-40% margin.
Democrats Upset With Poll Showing Trump Winning
It comes on the heels of a Washington Post-ABC News poll that was panned by Democrats that showed Trump up by 10 points a week ago. That poll put Trump at 52% and Biden at 42%.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia called on people to ignore the Washington Post poll.
“Ignore the Washington Post–ABC poll,” Sabato wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “How could you even publish a poll so absurd on its face? Will be a lingering embarrassment for you.” He added: “Just plain embarrassing – for them.”
New York Times political analyst Nate Cohn similarly criticized the poll.
“It’s really really hard to release outlying poll results, so you’ve got to give credit to ABC/Post here, but I do have a fairly major quibble with ABC/Post here: if you release consecutive ‘outlying’ poll results … you don’t get to dismiss your results.
“If it happens twice in a row in the same race, it’s clear that this is the result of some element of your approach, and you either need to decide you’re good with it and defend it or you need to go home.”
A noted average of all of the major polls still puts Trump ahead of Biden. The Real Clear Politics Average puts Trump at 45.3% and Biden at 44%. Biden had been ahead of or tied with Trump in the average since July.
Bidenomics a Losing Message
Biden’s approval rating stands at 40% in the Economist/YouGov poll with 55% disapproving. Only 38% approved of Biden’s handling of the economy.
Democrats now realize that Biden’s “Bidenomics” message is a losing strategy amid rising food, energy, and housing prices. Biden is starting to sound a bit like former President George H.W. Bush, who notoriously denied that the country was in a recession in 1992 and lost to Bill Clinton.
“At this point, Bidenomics doesn’t really have strong answers to people’s biggest worries,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. “There ought to be a lot of thinking in the White House now about changes in the way they present their case for the economic good that this administration has done.”
Biden advisers have begun realizing that the Bidenomics message has not connected with voters.
“I’ve never understood why you would brand an economy in your name when the economy hasn’t fully recovered yet,” said Michael LaRosa, a former spokesperson for first lady Jill Biden. “People need to be able to see and feel an economy in their own personal bank accounts. And it doesn’t change no matter how loud you scream the economy is better.”
Biden Age Creates Opening for Trump
The economy combined with Biden’s age is creating an opening for Trump despite his 91 indictment counts across four cases. Polling shows most Americans think Biden is too old.
Trump’s return suddenly is not out of reach.
“Someone has to convince President Biden that if he runs again, he’s going to turn the country back over to Trump and go down in history as Ruth Bader Biden, the person who doesn’t know when to quit, and so does great damage to their party and their country,” Liberal comedian Bill Maher said in his monologue.
Now with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement that he plans to run as an Independent, it remains to be seen who he will draw more votes from and how the dynamics of the race will change.
Clinton won in part in 1992 because of Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader’s campaign in 2000 ensured George W. Bush’s Electoral College win. Will Kennedy be a spoiler in 2024?
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.