New Swing State Poll Spells Disaster for Joe Biden Against Donald Trump
As Democrats seem to be again preparing to pull, push or carry President Joe Biden over the finish line to victory in the presidential election, they’re facing a problem.
An Echelon Insights poll of likely voters in battleground states found that 48 percent of them probably or definitely would vote for former President Donald Trump if the election were held now, compared with 41 percent who would vote for Biden.
Eleven percent were undecided.
Biden’s favorability among respondents in battleground states was just 40 percent, while Trump was at 43 percent.
Even within his own party, the president has problems.
Among Democrats, 33 percent of poll respondents overall and 34 percent in swing states said they would support someone other than Biden. That’s a significant deficit for the president.
Significantly, in the 2020 presidential race, Biden defeated Trump in the key battleground states of Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — although Trump has questioned those results.
The Echelon Insights survey, which polled 1,020 likely voters June 26-29, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.
Among likely Democratic voters, 65 percent favored Biden in the party’s primary race, while 14 percent supported Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 4 percent were for motivational author Marianne Williamson.
Presented only with the names of Biden, Kennedy and Williamson, 6 percent said “someone else” and 11 percent said they were unsure.
One question all this raises is how Democrats can succeed with an 80-year-old candidate whose cognitive decline is becoming more difficult to hide or excuse.
Biden: “[Putin] is clearly losing the war in Iraq” pic.twitter.com/dKt6yWWGFx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 28, 2023
Not that Biden was all that sharp in 2020, barely campaigning while Trump appeared like a rock star drawing crowds of thousands wherever he went.
And Trump seems to be repeating his performances of three years ago, with an estimated 50,000 people turning out to hear him over the Fourth of July weekend.
Outside of just battleground states, Echelon asked likely 2024 voters to choose from among Biden, Trump and Green Party candidate Cornel West if the election were held today. Trump received 43 percent of the support, Biden 42 percent and West 4 percent.
With such a close margin between the leading GOP and Democratic candidates, Trump and Biden, West could prove to be a spoiler, working to the incumbent’s disadvantage, according to David B. Cohen, a University of Akron political science professor.
“There is always a danger a third-party candidate can impact the electoral college results, particularly if they receive enough votes in a battleground state or states to change the outcome,” Cohen told Newsweek.
“In a close election, Cornel West could well be a spoiler,” he said. “There is no evidence to suggest that the 2024 election will be anything but a very close election decided by razor-thin margins, which means that a third-party candidate could have an outsized influence in the result.”
In 2000, the less than 3 percent of the popular vote that went to third-party candidate Ralph Nader, a consumer activist, could have cost Democrat Al Gore the highly disputed election that was ultimately decided for Republican George W. Bush, according to The History Channel.
With 16 months remaining until the 2024 presidential election, there’s no telling what will happen.
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