Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
The other obvious candidates do even worse vs Trump.
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/fe...ent-democrats/
"A new Emerson College Polling national survey on the potential 2024 presidential election reveals a tight race between former President Donald Trump and current President Biden, with 45% of voters favoring Trump, 44% supporting Biden, and 11% undecided. Support for both candidates has decreased by one point since the last national poll in January. In other hypothetical matchups, Trump leads with 46% against Vice President Kamala Harris’s 43% and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s 36%. Against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump maintains a lead with 45% compared to Whitmer’s 33%, with 22% undecided." |
You can't put a ton of stock into polls about candidates who aren't even in the race and who haven't had a ton of nationwide attention. The fact that someone as unpopular as Harris has the highest numbers is a pretty good indication of that.
But this isn't really a Trump vs. Biden thing. Viewing it through that lens is going to lead to inaccurate analysis, because Biden is obviously more competent, more effective, has better policies, and is vastly more stable.
Instead, it's more of a status quo vs. blow it up kind of thing. A lot of people in the US have become fed up with how things are; real wages in most of the swing states are no better than they were 20 years ago and life expectancy (particularly among males) is dropping and now verging on 3rd world levels (the US male life expectancy is closer to Iraq's and Syria's than it is Canada's). People can keep going on about how great the economy is, but the average swing voter doesn't really care how the stock market is doing or what the unemployment rate is if they feel like they're losing ground economically and they see people around them dying earlier than before.
Now obviously Trump and the Republicans are the source for the vast majority of those problems; Republican policies drive income inequality and reducing access to healthcare leads to people dying earlier. But people don't see that and the Democrats haven't effectively communicated that; and I'm not even convinced they recognize that people are unhappy. Instead they just keep talking about how great things are, which doesn't play well with people who aren't happy with the status quo.