It’s extremely difficult to put a hard number on things, but taking the only-Biden-or-Trump figures above as a baseline, and accounting for expected polling error, we would say that Trump probably can count on a 90% win rate with the polls where they are. However, things are close enough that if there were to be just a 1.3% swing to the Democrats, Biden would be favourite.
The power of the incumbent
If history is our guide, then a 1.3% swing is hardly inconceivable. Since Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, incumbent presidents have increased in the polls by an average of 1.75% from January to election day. Moreover, once you exclude the mad 1992 election, in which Ross Perot took nearly 19% of the vote, and incumbent George H. W. Bush lost 7% during those months, the average incumbency pickup is 3.75%.
Of course, this all depends on the scenario. Will Biden’s campaign follow Obama’s in 2012, when he broadly didn’t pick up any votes from February onwards? Or will it resemble Trump’s in 2020, when he actually lost votes towards election day? If the latter, Trump 2024 is still the heavy favourite.
Indeed, that 3.75% average is heavily tilted towards the massive incumbency gains made by Reagan in 1984 (7%), and Clinton in 1996 (9%), two of the greatest orators of the 20th century. Is that really replicable? When you step back, this election surely has more in common with George W. Bush’s in 2004, which resulted in a modest 2.5% pickup. And if that does happen, it could result in the closest electoral college map in history, with constitutional chaos bound to follow.
A very personal election
It’s going to be a defensive election for the Democrats. Biden, who represented a “fresh start” in 2020, is now feeling the costs of governing. The problem for Democrats is that the last election was very close — Biden won by less than a single percentage point in Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia. And he can’t afford to lose them now.
That said, presidential vote choice now tends to be extremely static. Gone are the days when a large percentage of the electorate were genuinely prepared to vote for either of the two main parties. Over 90% of Republican and Democratic voters in 2016 voted for the same party in 2020. It suggests that this year’s election will be decided by turnout rather than switchers: just 3% of those we surveyed are intending to directly switch from Trump to Biden.
The question is: of those who voted Biden in 2020, how many are not planning to vote for him this time? We used a regression model — a way of teasing out what drives voting behaviour using statistical analysis, rather than explicit answers, as people are not very good judges of their own motivations and impulses. The results were pretty striking.
The biggest factor behind defection from voting Democrat is, unsurprisingly, people’s approval of Biden as President. The next three factors are: belief that Republicans can handle cost of living better, high concern about Biden’s age, and low institutional trust.
There are, however, also blockers that stop people from defecting: Biden’s decision to make climate change a top-three issue, and a high level of trust, as measured by Covid vaccination doses (more on this below).
There is a lot of collinearity here: those who rate Biden poorly are also very likely to think that Republicans will better handle the cost of living. But the overall message is that it’s a very personal election: people are not voting for Biden because they don’t think he’s done a good job when it comes to the cost of living. Reversing this is key.
And this is where things get tricky for Biden. For while his flagship policies involve investment in the economy, voters do not associate these policies with the cost of living. Half of respondents (51%) picked the cost of living among their top-three issues in our poll, almost 20% more than the next most important issues, immigration and healthcare. However, when respondents were prompted to pick a policy, they chose direct income — a higher minimum wage, or improving the Affordable Care Act — over industrial or green investment, by a large margin.
But before we get too bearish on Biden, it’s worth looking at the battleground maps. In any given election, looking at these quadrants is a staple activity of the war room. Each graph shows the salience of each issue — and which party is winning it. But as those below indicate, this election is a dog-fight, and it’s probably going to remain so right up to election day.
Could we see a polling error?
For people like us who spend their day poring over political polling, the 2016 election night looms large in polling nightmares. The polling industry as a whole failed to pick up the extent of Trump’s support, and there was a large polling “miss” on a state level, as Trump unexpectedly won in a number of Democratic states — in particular, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Could that happen again?
For all the excitement, we don’t think such a big miss is likely. Since Trump and Biden have run against each other before, the overall pattern of their support is mostly a “known quantity”, unlike in 2016. There are, however, some signs that controlling for education — one of the key factors in the 2016 election surprise — may no longer be enough. This increases the possibility of a slight polling error — but this time against the Democrats.
Since at least 2000, the Democratic-Republican political divide has been moving away from income and “realigning” towards trust in the federal government and mainstream media. Poorer areas with high levels of suspicion towards the state have been shifting from Democratic to Republican, while wealthier and educated areas have become increasingly Democratic.
A key measure of this shift are Covid-19 vaccination rates. Many people in the US chose not to be vaccinated, or did not take at least one of the recommended doses. This choice was strongly linked to their trust in the government, media and scientists. The fact that vaccination data is available for relatively small geographical areas makes it an ideal tool to investigate how important “trust” is to politics.
As the above graph reveals, trust is extremely important in understanding the shift in Republican support since 2000. The correlation between Trump’s vote in 2016 and the percentage who completed the initial course of two doses is strong (at -0.62), as is the correlation to Republican gain between 2000 and 2016 (-0.46). Note: this is the Republican vote share from 2016 — vaccination rates are used to track underlying social attitudes, rather than opinions relating to Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
What vaccination rates give us is a granular variable that isn’t strictly demographic, but is in fact quite predictive of your cultural outlook and values. It helps us understand when a poll may be demographically balanced — i.e. have the right number of white people aged 18-24 — but not representative of other politically sensitive variables — i.e. it has too many unvaccinated people or not enough two-dose Americans. When this happens you get a polling error. In the case of our own, we found that panel data typically overestimated unvaccinated, and underestimated two-dose Americans — thereby potentially underestimating the Democrat vote share.
Added to this factor is the possible existence of “non-response bias”, a result of the skew caused by certain kinds of people being more likely to answer surveys than others. In the US, the hardest to reach respondents tend to be the youngest (18-24) as well as those aged 65 and over. In surveys these groups are often represented by a particular subset who are more likely to answer surveys: namely, the 18-24s who use social media most heavily, and the most educated retirees.
This probably skews the results for those groups, making the youngest groups appear more Republican, and the oldest too Democrat. We think this is behind many polls showing Trump leading Biden among voters aged under 30 — something Sabato’s Crystal Ball has noticed. Although Trump has probably gained among this group since 2020, it would be very surprising if he had gone as far as to overturn Biden’s lead. We think that the age cross breaks of US polling are deeply vulnerable to polling error and data quality. We are sceptical that the age curve of the US has flattened to the degree the polls suggest.
A similar effect, in reverse, may also be leading pollsters to overestimate Democratic support among the over-65s. To make matters thornier, this skew can interact with the vaccination angle. In our raw sample, unvaccinated 18-24s are overrepresented: just half have received two doses, a figure that should be closer to two-thirds. With high-dose young Democrats being less represented in polls, and authoritarian, unvaccinated young adults more represented — it is clear that the young are very likely to be less pro-Trump than polls suggest, and older voters marginally more supportive of Trump than public polls.
Another aspect of our polling we’ve been looking at is “white identity” — or specifically, the belief that there is discrimination against white Americans. In this survey, we measured this by asking: “In the USA today, how likely is it that many whites are unable to find a job because employers are hiring minorities instead?” The most common response was “Not at all likely” — but responding positively to any extent is a strong predictor of voting for Trump, both in 2016 and 2020.
What’s really interesting here, however, is that polls may be overestimating the percentage of people — particularly white people — who are hostile to affirmative action, and who believe their job prospects are hindered by minorities. If that’s the case, then we might expect a very different kind of polling error this cycle. When we look at the incidence in our survey compared to those in the general population (as measured by the ANES 2020 survey), we are over-sampling those who answer “extremely” and “very likely” (and particularly so in Pennsylvania).
As a result, it is possible that we are over-sampling low-trust, anti-establishment and strong white-identity voters — something which, if true, would lead to the Democrats doing a little bit better than polls predict. And come November, that “little bit better” could make all the difference. Biden might be polling behind Trump for now, but when you stack up the reasons why he could win, his re-election is much more likely than many would have you think.
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SubscribeSomeone better tell Biden. Judging by recent events, I’m not sure he even realises that he’s running.
I bet he knows that he hammered Trump in 2020!
He “hammered” Trump? When even this (not remotely pro-Trump) article reminds us that the 2020 election was “very close”?
He won by 8 million votes or so, old boy! I’d say that was a pretty good hammering!
It was close, however had Zuckerburg et al not shadow banned the Hunter Biden dossier I actually think Trump may have won (for better or worse).
America is a real basket case, Biden and Trump, the best on offer..?
Saying that we had Johnson, maybe they are all cheap to buy off, the elites like to save their money after all. Out with the pitchforks I say, lets share out the elites money, it is truly obscene the amount of tax payers money they ‘steal’
The difference is not in the national vote, its in the election of delegates to the electoral college. Biden “won” that by 53,000 votes. Given the irregularities in postal ballots, that’s not a hammering, its a question mark.
He won by a combined 40k votes across 3 states.
The US does not elect presidents on popular vote. Each STATE gets to vote for president, the elections are simply to determine which way a state will vote.
That was done intentionally. Each state is sovereign within a federal system. Each state is a unique power.
I mean really….it’s right there in the name…UNITED STATES, 50 states, like mini national states, united by consent.
The Electoral College does not work as intended. It was meant to prevent people like Trump from being elected by placing the decision in the hands of learned individuals who would deliberate like any legislative body. It was not meant to rubber stamp every vote in a state for the dominant party in that state, and it was certainly not meant to institute a Frankenstein’s monster of a popular vote with a massive roundoff error. As such, it conforms neither to republican nor democratic principles.
That supposedly was the popular vote, but it’s suspect even by 36% Democrats who when polled just after the election felt that there was shenanigans. Biden won electorally by 44,000 votes – the slimmest margin ever.
I seriously doubt that figure, but regardless they’re wrong. There is no justification for such an assertion, as Biden actually underperformed his polling.
As for his slim electoral margin, it only confirms how undemocratic the Electoral College is, and why it has to go.
The real “hidden advantage” that Joe Biden maintains is the same “hidden advantage” that Hillary Clinton received when she was running for President.
Here’s merely one example:
Hillary kept Classified documents while Secretary of State on an unauthorized and unsecured personal email server in her bathroom closet at home.
DOJ’s response?
In James Comey’s initial assessment drafts, his investigative team declared Hillary’s actions “grossly negligent.” But because this phrase has legal meaning in US law, Comey changed the final draft to state her actions were “extremely careless.” Same meaning, but the latter cannot be prosecuted under US law.
Joe Biden also took Classified documents to his home (placed in his garage next to his corvette) and carelessly provided many of them to his Penn Biden Center at UPenn when he was unauthorized to do so as a Senator/ Vice President.
DOJ’s response?
‘[DOJ’s] Mr. Hur reports that he “uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” But he concludes that “no criminal charges are warranted,” in large part because he doesn’t believe a jury would convict “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”’ (Wall Street Journal, 2/9/2024)
So “Guilty, but Not Guilty by reason of insanity”…not based on a jury of his peers but based on Joe Biden’s own DOJ circumventing a public trial.
Meanwhile, Trump who has done what every other President has done for over 50 years (i.e. taking Classified material to his home which is protected by the Secret Service because Presidents have traditionally been granted that authorization) is prosecuted to the utmost.
The alphabet agencies playing referee are the “hidden advantage” that may lead to Joe Biden winning.
Civil Liberties are the true casualty of all of this. Selective prosecution (“…because Trump!”) will inevitably lead to totalitarian rule, no matter how well-meaning people justify their ‘double-standard’ actions.
No, Hillary did not store classified documents on her server. Not a single one of the e-mails was marked classified. Two had confidential portion markings. One of those was found to be in error.
The e-mails in question would later be evaluated for classified material and marked. That’s how they do it at State. Hillary did not intentionally stow away classified documents.
Hillary’s mistake was having conversations about potentially classified material on a personal phone. Trump and his family did the same thing, except worse because their conversations were stored on private commercial servers, and thus can’t be accounted for or protected as easily as Hillary’s. So far as we know, nobody investigated this; they’re too busy with more serious crimes.
Trump, on the other hand, intentionally took documents marked classified, waved them around in front of people, and had piles of them spread all over Mar-a-lago. When asked to give them back, he denied having them; then he gave *some* back and claimed he didn’t have more, which was a lie. This cycle of denial and partial acquiescence repeated again. His lawyers signed an affidavit that Trump told them that was all, basically to cover their own asses because they didn’t trust him.
After the third false denial, they had no choice but to secure a search warrant for Mar-a-lago, which his media acolytes dutifully deemed some sort of horrific police state action. Trump lied and said they should have just asked him, when they already had – repeatedly. They were shut up when the feds posted images of the classified docs they found.
I’m sorry, but you get your info from entirely unreliable sources. Either they don’t understand or are intentionally deceiving you. This stuff is all out there for everyone to see. The evidence is overwhelming – Trump intentionally stole classified documents and tried to keep them by lying about having them when asked. That was before pivoting to, “Well they were mine, they belonged to me, I deserved to keep them.” He openly admitted this.
The president may hold a security clearance, but he is not authorized to keep classified documents in an unsecured facility, especially not a place like Mar-a-lago, which has recently been a Star Wars cantina of foreign nationals trying to curry favor with Trump.
Even the recent report on Biden’s documents made an unequivocal and full-throated distinction between Biden and Trump. Read it.
Stop rationalizing and making excuses for a man who is a clear threat to national security. And stop getting your information from right-wing hacks.
Oh dear, Eric. You need to do your homework before posting.
From Politifact (a center left-leaning organization – see mediabiasfactcheck – that did their best to be sympathetic to Hillary’s case):
“On July 5, 2016, the FBI released its findings on an investigation into Clinton’s emails. Then-FBI Director James Comey said of the 30,000 emails, 113 were determined to have contained classified information at the time they were sent. Comey said three of those had a marking indicating they were classified, and that 2,000 more were marked as classified after the fact by various agencies.”
And:
“The State Department reviewed thousands of documents in Clinton’s emails, and questioned dozens of State Department employees. The investigation took place primarily during Donald Trump’s presidency, running from July 2016 to September 2019.
It focused on the general problem of spillage, the sharing of unmarked but nevertheless classified details. The investigation found 38 people were responsible for 91 violations. It found 497 additional violations in which no one could be held culpable.”
Whether something is marked Classified is irrelevant according to the law.
As anyone who knows anything about Classified material – implied ignorance or a lack of a Classified stamp is no excuse. People are still prosecuted even if they are ‘ignorant’ of classified information.
Thanks for playing.
He ‘cheated’, surely you know that old chap?
If not why not?
No doubt Trump will take this up with the courts and win the day!
Oh….
We all know the American courts are bought and paid for by the Liberal elites.
See the Mark Steyn decision yesterday for proof of that. Listen to the podcasts to hear how skewed things are.
Sadly true as the depraved DC court has repeatedly demonstrated.
“We all know”!! Yawn. Even the justices appointed by Trump no doubt. Echo chamber thinking of the highest calibre!
So you just don’t care. What an aweful attitude, you do not deserve to live in a democracy.
Typical leftist, no regard for the law as long as it’s weaponized against the “other side.”
Are you completely oblivious to reality? The Federalist society has been running rings around “liberal elites” for years. It’s why the Supreme Court has been able to remake this country in its image.
And furthermore, you need to educate yourself about the court cases brought by Giuliani et al. They were mostly petty, niggling issues thrown out for lack of evidence or standing. They never even alleged actual fraud – at one point even declining to answer a judge when he was willing to entertain whatever suspicion of fraud they had. They at least knew enough not to allege such things in court – that carries consequences (consequences they ran afoul of anyway even with what they did allege). There’s no such penalty for lying to us about it, though.
You and everybody else know that of the 90 court cases dealing with election fraud in 2020 (thats an incredible number) were dismiss because of ‘standing’. Not ONE case examined any evidence. If the individual states do not have standing then who does? Even the US Supreme court was cowed by the Intifada riots.
Oh…..
No, you’re entirely wrong. Of the 60 or so cases, there were a handful that went to trial, and they were generally disastrous and received scathing rebukes from judges.
As for the ones thrown out, they were thrown out either for *lack of evidence* or *lack of standing*. And yes, lack of standing matters, because if someone were alleging actual election fraud, the courts would absolutely not claim a candidate had lack of standing. That tells you that what was being alleged was some petty, “throw it against the walk and see if it sticks” kind of issue that would hardly have mattered to the election, and at best would have given them some lame, misleading talking point. Giuliani never actually made any claims of fraud.
The lack of evidence in the court cases heard was due to a lack of evidence in existence. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Numerous investigations and audits – even entirely partisan ones or ones performed by Republican officials – turned up nothing in the swing states. Nada. Zilch. All the time Republicans were constantly clamoring for more investigations, investigations either were already underway or had already occurred.
The Republican official who investigated in Minnesota was so unequivocal about how there was no merit to the claims that he even recommended the AG look into criminal charges of possible fraud against the hacks in Antrim County who ginned up phony claims. This was a good Christian guy who lives on a farm and takes care of a large brood of children, including those of a dead brother – and he was subsequently harassed and shunned by his “good Christian” neighbors and “friends” for telling the truth.
Get a dog or something….a hobby….maybe work at a homeless shelter
Says the socialist who loves corrupted justice. But only until it comes for you.
You are up early Charles. 🙂
Temporarily exiled to a different time zone.
True. He’s very popular with the deceased.
You didn’t read the article did you. Typical leftist, ill informed but always spouting off.
the USA word of what is going on is:
”Yellow Dog Democrats is a political term that was applied to voters in the Southern United States who voted solely for candidates who represented the Democratic Party. The term originated in the late 19th century. ”
(If one was on the Democrat ticket they would vote for Yellow Dog’ to be President.)
It’s so pitiful.
It is pathetic and embarrassing.
It’s also verging on the cruel.
You got there just before me David.
In his angry self-defence of his mental acuity yesterday, Biden called el-Sisi the President of Mexico.
Was he thinking of El Guapo, the bandit slash revolutionary leader in “The Three Amigos,” maybe?
Entonces, este el hombre fuerte y caballero grande Generalissimo “El Sissy.”
Don’t forget he talked with a long dead Mitterrand lately.
Watching Biden lately is more than painful, it’s scary. Shame on Jill Biden for pushing him onward. We knew she wasn’t a medical doctor, but she could certainly be a more caring, less-ambitious-for-her-husband wife, seemingly practicing ‘elderly abuse’.
You are promulgating lazy myths. No matter how cogent and on top of events Biden is during press conferences, the press jumps on every misstated name, place, etc – something which most people do all the time, especially Trump – and ignores the rest of what he says. I’m so sick of it. It’s no wonder our voting populace is so ill informed, because even the part of our press that reliably tells the truth still puts its focus on clickbait to generate revenue.
Meanwhile Trump not only misstates names and places, but confuses entire identities! He thought Nikki Haley was in charge of security at the Capitol on J6, and no, he did *not* mean to be talking about Nancy Pelosi – the person he has always falsely believed was in charge of security at the Capitol – he was bashing Haley specifically and suddenly superimposed his whiny misconceptions about Nancy Pelosi onto her. That’s a legitimate potential moment of dementia.
And when Trump isn’t making obvious screwups, and actually attempts to engage on substance, he usually sounds like a guy trying to fake his way through an oral exam in a class where he never attended or even cracked the textbook. Unless he’s going on about the 2020 election, in which case he sounds like an unhinged loon and a spoiled child. Or his other favorite subject – how much various authoritarians like him, and how he loves them, which we all know is not only a complete embarrassment, but really an indication of how easily they manipulate him by stroking his fragile ego.
But sure, keep making cute little remarks about Biden supposedly being senile, when in fact he shows clear command, grasp, and realism about world events. So that we end up with a guy who views the world through the lens of deranged conspiracy theories, paranoid delusions, and petty spats. Who threw a temper tantrum when his own military brass attempted to explain the post-WWII order and the United States’ place in it, calling them a “bunch of dopes and babies”. And who has communicated clear plans to kneecap the American Civil Service and politicize the day to day functioning of government.
None of this will be remotely funny then.
Written prior to the release of the Hur report?
In any sane world (so a major caveat there) Biden would be shuffled off stage in a New York minute.
Ahhhh… but Kamala.
Kamala is no longer Biden’s insurance policy. Someone forgot that the policy expires close to election time.
To save everybody 10 minutes they’ll never get back, essentially Trump has a slight lead but it’s not far off 50-50 who’s going to win.
Only the yanks could drag out an election for nearly a year! And they have another one half way through just in case you wasn’t bored enough the first time round!
That should be “weren’t bored enough” not wasn’t.
But what kind of evil person would want this result
I remember 2016 experts 🙂
Did not really have to read this again to know that an unsolicited opinion is just that. So many graphs, so little content. I would have thought this might come across as Opinion, Essay, or the like.
Someone put a lot of effort into this lengthy (tribute?) …. so I’ll read it again. But I don’t think my opinion will change after the 3rd, 4th reading.
The article is full of the kind of pseudo-precision that makes polling seem, superficially, more credible than it really is. Pollsters for the 2016 election, and indeed the Brexit referendum in the UK, had all manner of fine-tuning gizmos, compensating mechanisms, statistical adjustments, etc. They still got it wrong – because polling is a fairly crude, impressionistic tool, but they’re paid to pretend that it isn’t.
I couldn’t finish it. Much like climate change, the ancient art of crystal ball gazing, given credence by spreadsheets.
Whichever side wins the other is going to riot.
Northern and western coastal cities will definitely need to batten down the hatches, as they did in 2020 when the election was close.
There were no riots to speak of, as everyone knows the bulk of fiery but mostly peaceful looting doesn’t come from suburban and rural Republicans.
There weren’t riots when Trump won, but there should have been. The election was obviously rigged.
So little content, indeed. Why UnHerd is publishing such irrelevant piffle I don’t know.
Exactly, as boring as hell.
At the start of this piece, I mentally mispronounced foc/al/data: by the end I concluded I was right first time.
OMG, I’m surprised you could even read it once. Such endurance!
Joes not going to be the nominee. The problem Dems have is what to do about Harris. No matter how many times consultants attempted to improve her image, she’s seen as a word salad buffet incapable , despite playing the 1st card, of winning. The “ chickens coming home to roost” moment is here. Play the woke, Jamaican , woman card, go broke.
I’m not so sure. The DNC really put all their eggs in one basket when it came to Joe. They even went out of their way to have a coronation instead of even having a primary. Replacing him at this point in time is going to come with its own headaches and if they are not able to do it soon then voters will see the replacement as just a stand in with the same policies. It will also upset a lot of Democrat voters who are going to have little say in the matter. There are some boring and normal Democrats they could pick from but I get the feeling Harris and Newsome are not going to let that happen. Newsome in particular would start a brawl over it. Both also have serious electability problems of their own. Keeping Joe in the basement, expecting the courts to destroy Trump, and hoping things would run smoothly in the meantime was always a risky strategy.
Biden was always a risky choice. He withdrew from numerous other primaries in the past – when he was far more vigorous, if bumbling & dishonest – but has the advantage of being associated with Obama, whom Democrat voters remember fondly.
He now is nearly incapacitated, or at least appears to be, and the country now seems to be run by a committee of college sophomores, with the predictable results apparent for all to see.
I doubt they’ll get someone up and running in time, agreed.
Another issue that you mentioned is that the more prominent potential candidates – Newsome, Harris, et al – are too far left and have far too much baggage.
A Republican nominee, presumably Trump, need only point to Californian cities’ t**d strewn streets and soaring crime rates to turn the swing states bright red.
Megyn K now thinks the game plan is to get Biden over the line and have Harris as President (with Obama pulling strings)
You mean Obama continuing to pull the strings? Many of us “regular folks on the street” believe this current administration is really Obama’s 3rd administration.
I don’t think Obama is so much pulling the strings as engaging in a tug of war behind the scenes with other factions. That is why the puppet looks so jerky.
I would agree with the idea Obama is the person who is really running policy and not Biden or Harris
Biden is not getting over the line unless you have a double in the wing. As soon as Biden arrives, hide him behind the curtain and pull out the double, who then is able to answer questions and is able to walk off the stage without falling off.
I hope the DNC doesn’t try to Epstein her.
Timing is everything – all that work you put into this essay has just been mooted
The only way Biden beats Trump is if the Democrats manipulate the voting machines–again.
Your tin foil hat may be a little too tight, sport!
To call that election rigged is the understatement of the century!
It was the sort of thing one would expect in the Republic of Bonobongland, or numerous other tin-pot Banana Republics.
Incidentally where have you been for the past few weeks? Not struck down by COVID IX I trust?
We can only hope.
Covid IX?
They’re making a prequel
Genuinely funny!
Irrespective of your political view CS, you should want, hope and wish for fair elections and minimal election fraud. If you do not, you are just a despot. Any fair person knows that there were many investigations that should have been carried out. All 90 cases that went to court were all dismissed because of ‘standing’. In not one case was the evidence examined. Even the states case was thrown out. If the states do not have standing in a Presidential election then I do not know who does. The DOJ carried out zero investigations and then stated that there was insufficient fraud to over-turn the election, directly lying to the american public. The ‘Big Lie’ and ‘the most secure election in history’ says it all; there were major issues with election fraud in 2020.
Now the US is paying the price and what a big price that will end up being. So CS enough of your tin-hat nonsense.
Do you really still believe that? That’s delusional thinking.
Trump loses in another landslide
It’s the economy, stupid! And the Biden economic miracle, after the wreckage left by Trump, is roaring!
All you have is your insane Trump cult and it is shrinking by the day.
Haven’t you got that the wrong way round……….sport?
Trump’s lockdown policies in 2020 wrecked the economy.
Biden is now doing a much better job now he has got the President of Mexico to cooperate on allowing aid into Gaza.
But Biden is all over this Middle East stuff..
BIDEN: “There is some movement, and I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, let me be choose my words — there’s some movement. There’s been a response from the, uh, there’s been a response from the opposition, but um…”
REPORTER: “Hamas?”
BIDEN: “Yes, I’m sorry, from Hamas…”
I understand he also had considerable help from President Mitterand.
I think he is taking a leaf out of the new Argentinian presidents book…
I’m betting the Dems will engineer Dementia Joe’s withdrawal, sideline Word-Salad Harris, and parachute in Michelle to secure an Obama 4th term. Literally. I’ve put a tenner on Michelle becoming the Democrat candidate at 10/1 with bookies Unibet.
Sham pain at large again and still using the same old ham-fisted provocation tactic. Plenty of suckers eager to take the bait though.
I like that: what a pain! For a Socialist, he doesn’t believe , it seems, in representative democracy or is it power at all costs? Or is it just trolling?
AssPain Bolshevist.
If you thought the Hur report was bad you should have seen the press conference. That was painful to watch.
The Hur report basically said Biden could not be prosecuted because of diminished responsibility.
But he is fine to continue as President?
The 25th amendment or Impeachment is the only way. ‘There must be a better way when someone is so incapacitated. Its just that Obama and previous administration are carrying on just fine; thank you very much. I just don’t know how they are are going to be able to cover it up during the election process without Covid, though.
Peter, why do you post your photo it doesn’t help your cause.
It kinda did didn’t it and I’m a dem.
If you read that, by this professional ‘Think Tanker’, and your eyes did not glaze over half way…..
” is a partner at Hanbury Strategy and an advisory board member of the think tank Onward.”
And if you suspect this is impartial polling…….then you are likely quadruple boosted, have a yellow and blue sticker on your bicycle, and think Windmills are part of the answer to Global Warming… and so on…maybe have a degree in Gender Studies and work for a used clothing Charity shop…..
But – If you do a job which produces something, say a Carpenter or own your own insurance agency – you go right to comments to see how the sheep respond to all this……..
That was my impression completely
That‘s exactly what happened to me, my eyes glazed over and I went to the comment section, which seems much more interesting.
And you are one of the sheep!
Nobody wants this rehash…….nobody
This read as desperate attempt to reach a pre-determined conclusion. I don’t know whether Trump will win, but articles like this suggest his opponents think that he will.
Not anymore! 🙂
In October 2020, Joe Biden had a 16 point lead in the polls.
And a 34 percent lead among women in the polls.
Older women go to the grocery store. When a loaf of rye suddenly costs $5, they’re likely to notice.
Some will buy the “supply chains” or the “this happened in other countries, too” stories, but economic policies matter.
Bidenomics chooses full employment over inflation. Its adherents don’t seem to realize that while unemployment hurts the unemployed, inflation hurts everyone.
The use of vaccination as a proxy test for representativeness is good, but it also shows both how difficult to know how reliable polls are now, and the deeply entrenched sideism with very little ebb-and-flow based on issues or events.
It’s also worth observing that the Democrats are very, very good at elections. Much, much better at getting votes for the count than the Republicans.
And we still have a real possibility that the Democrat slate might not include the current president, or even vice president. And an outside chance that court rulings will knock out Trump
“Democrats are very, very good at elections”
That is one way to put it.
The use of vaccination as a proxy test for representativeness is good.
What a crazy world we live in, if true.
One can only hope that Trump will be knocked out.
Michelle will win but the Dems are cutting it a bit fine.
Maybe. How’s that going to differ from Biden, though? I don’t see many people clamoring for more of the same. Well, other than the blind partisans who don’t care what happens as long as it happens with their team in power.
I guess the downvotes indicate that maybe I should have made my actual preferences clearer. I just think it’s the likely outcome. They’ll simply have to pull her out of the hat. Let’s be honest; she’d walk it. They know Biden will die in office and then it’s word-salad woman Karmala. I wouldn’t be surprised if the stuff in the news today is just preparing the ground for Biden’s resignation with honours.
I’m not doubting the possibility; I’m just looking at the effect. It’s not like Biden is making the decisions anyway. Her election would continue the status quo, which no one seems enthused about. Well, no one but the blind partisans.
And that my friends, is scary indeed.
Biden is certainly not a safe pair of hands.
In fact, he could end up being considerably worse than Trump, and
a frightening hole in international politics, which are already fraught with difficulties.
His foreign policy may as well have “kick me” written on it. Iran will get nukes and continue baiting Israel with proxy wars, North Korea will try a limited missile attack on the south figuring there’ll be no response, China will begin (or possibly complete) annexation of Taiwan, Putin will not back down in Europe. Meanwhile on Biden’s domestic front, the US will run out of munitions, while fiddling with elite-pleaser Net Zero / EV targets and insane social experiments like release of all blacks from federal prisons (cells to be filled with political opponents instead), and dismantling any last border controls.
What?!!
he could end up being considerably worse than Trump, — the current state of affairs would suggest that this bridge was crossed long ago.
“Considerably worse than Trump” is saying something as the bar is set so low.
Whoever wins in November you can be quite sure that half the country will say : ‘ He (or She) is not my President!’
If Trump wins I think we should say the election was rigged.
the USA the laughing stock of the world with the UK a very close second!!
Wishful thinking on behalf of the author and Unherd. A particularly laugh out line was, “Biden could easily have a very good campaign and still lose.” Biden only won in 2020 by 50,000 votes and that was becuase he hid in his basement so that voters couldn’t see how far gone he was by then.
The Covid vaccination rates is a red herring and the issues chart is far too busy with the result that it subverts the argument. Note, in none of the states is Climate Change a top issue for more than 20% of their voters.
Lastly, there is a gaping hole on the quesiton of the Vice-President, as neither is likely to live out their term, that will feature front and center in the decision making of many. Looking at Kamala Harris’s ratings for the past 3 years she is anchor on an already sinking ship.
Fits with my own gloomy conclusion that Biden will win. The other way of looking at this is that the Democrats have legions of millions of zealots who think of nothing other than achieving their quest for total power; and that those people have for decades been making it their business to be stationed throughout the intertwining political, educational, cultural, media and corporate organs of society at every level, working as one under a common ideology to methodically lay down the preparations for this moment, like Hamas patiently building their vast underground fortress ready for their day of glory. With only a handful of exceptions, the Republicans seem more engaged with their hobbies and pastimes than any meaningful organization to confront the staggering political shifts of the last decade. It’s like wolves versus lambs.
I think you are probably correct about the Democrats polling machine being more effective… but if the current elite cycle (post-war liberalism) is coming to an end then that polling machine may run out of energy.
Look at how many Conservative Party members in the UK are saying that they won’t take part in the election machine this time because the Conservative don’t merit support. If too many Democrat supporters decide that Joe and Kamala are too far gone (and the lawfare against Trump too egregious) then the value of the Democrat Polling Machine could be reduced, perhaps significantly. The Faithful might still vote Democrat but they might not be willing to encourage others.
I’d agree it’s for sure that boomer liberalism has run its course. But the successor ideology seems far more virulent, because it’s a kind of religious ideology based much more on moral fervour than on the mix of economic interest and old fashioned indignation you see in boomer liberals. The new zealots aren’t live and let live. They have their own version of the Umma they want to impose on the world. So I don’t see them declining to push their views on others.
You should replace “The Democrats have legions of zealots” with The Republicans have legions of zealots, because zealots is the only word to describe MAGA Republicans.
Biden has the key advantage of most of the US MSM completely ignoring or suppressing his now, pikestaff plain, cognitive decline. A few days after he recounted a recent meeting he had had with a French President who had been dead for years he makes a speach in which he mixed up the Presidents of Egypt and Mexico. We’re also now informed that the DoJ won’t be prosecuting him for all the classfied materials he had in his garage essentially because he’s a forgetful old man.
I’m not sure that they’ll be able to hold this line until November though – his ‘gaffes’ are so frequent. This will not be a Trump-Biden election.
Biden is like that “leader” in Woody Allen’s 1973 film “Sleeper.”
Hur all but said that Biden could not be convicted because he would be found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Full of numbers, but no feel for the zeitgeist. We are living in a time a political upheaval — yet this author assumes many things not at all clear —especially that 2024 will bring a rematch between Biden & Trump (a Michelle Obama coronation at the Dem convention is possible, as is a Dem judge forcing Trump to run from jail.) I had no idea Unherd was part of the globalist elite. Will unsubscribe at once.
I won’t unsubscribe but your message to the folks at Unherd is loud and clear: Ditch this analyst.
Please do.
The power of the incumbent: the Biden campaign is Contacting recipients of Federal benefits to register them to vote, perhaps taking demographics into account. And contacting recipients of student loan an bailouts to remind them whom to thank. The information to accomplish this is likely not available to his opponent.
All of this, and the additional fact that the Dems and Never-Trump Republicans will certainly launch another “shadow campaign” like the one they bragged about in the 2020 election. https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
Can’t we just ignore all this polling nonsense until, say, mid-October? I do have a life.
I think I would describe the article as over analysis basking in pseudo science- a regression model based on all sorts of flaky assumptions and polysyllabic drivel..…Of course, this all depends on the scenario. ….What vaccination rates give us is a granular variable that isn’t strictly demographic, but is in fact quite predictive of your cultural outlook and values…Another aspect of our polling we’ve been looking at is “white identity”….We think that the age cross breaks of US polling are deeply vulnerable to polling error and data quality…come November, that “little bit better” could make all the difference.
in summary-a lot of numbers based on dubious polling with no real conclusion.
Yup, my eyes glazed over half-way through!
I’m surprised you managed to get halfway through! Such a lot of wasted time and energy must have gone into putting it together.
Are you better off today than you were four years ago? That’s the only question that matters. The personality drama that has consumed the media ever since Trump entered the arena is comical but also pointless. We’ve had a Trump administration. We’re in a Biden administration. Compare and contrast as you see fit. If you like the current conditions, then your choice is simple. If you don’t like them, that choice is simple, too.
This palace intrigue stuff is why people hate politics. It’s not a beauty contest. It’s not a ballgame. It’s a fairly significant job that requires a fertile mind and presumes that the office holder puts his constituents and their interests above all else. Who thinks Team Biden fits either of those two descriptions? Trump has flaws, as does every other human, and it’s not hard to understand how he puts some people off. But the question stands: compare then with now and ask if things have improved or if the current course will lead to improvement.
Trump is more than just flawed. He’s a narcissistic sociopath who doesn’t care about anyone but himself. That’s dangerous for a world leader.
It’s interesting that the author has left out the pull that RFK, Jr is having on the electorate, especially in younger voters. There have been recent polls indicating his stronger than expected 3rd party appeal. He is everywhere on social media these days. Hard to tell at this point which side will feel his presence as either an on the ballot candidate or a write in one.
Another factor is Cornel West. He is attracting the pro-Palestinian cohort who are not sold on Biden. In states like Michigan, this is a real threat to Biden (should he remain the nominee).
Really?! What a strange one he is.
Biden can beat Trump like he did last time. By cheating.
As of last night, not even cheating will save Biden.
And Trump beat Obama by cheating.
Nope, not BHO he was out. Trump beat “It’s her turn” “I came, I saw, he died! ( cackle j HRC.
As geriatric Joe’s declining mental faculties become harder and harder to ignore, who the VP is matters more and more. It they had asked Biden voters how comfortable they would be with Kamala as president for at least some of the period, it might have been revealing.
This will be the 3rd US election in a row where Americans have been asked to select the least worst candidate. As time progresses I can see more and more would be Dems voting for other candidates like RFK Jr, which would leave Trump with an apparent landslide in the electoral college.
There us no doubt in my mind that cheating went on in the big cities of the swing states. Stopping the count when Trump was winning. Only.one reason to do that. To do a recon on what was needed in real time. The “mail in” ballots were ready and waiting. In large sacks. The dead and the dying had their say. They’ll.do it again because the republicans are incompetent and divided.
Unfortunately (for you), no doubt in your mind means very little to anyone else.
Trump got laughed out of court in every case (including with judges that he appointed) and Rupert Murdoch and Rudy Giuliani have found out to their cost that repeating the election lies is not a good idea.
Irrespective of your political view CS, you should want, hope and wish for fair elections and minimal election fraud. If you do not, you are just a despot. Any fair person knows that there were many investigations that should have been carried out. All 90 cases that went to court were all dismissed because of ‘standing’. In not one case was the evidence examined. Even the states case was thrown out. If the states do not have standing in a Presidential election then I do not know who does. The DOJ carried out zero investigations and then stated that there was insufficient fraud to over-turn the election, directly lying to the american public. The ‘Big Lie’ and ‘the most secure election in history’ says it all; there were major issues with election fraud in 2020.
Now the US is paying the price and what a big price that will end up being. So CS enough !
“All 90 cases that went to court were all dismissed because of ‘standing’. In not one case was the evidence examined”
This is simply untrue. Being laughed out of court is not the same as being dismissed because of standing. Perhaps putting Rudy Giuliani in charge of legal strategy wasn’t so smart, eh?
The 2020 election was fair and you know it. You, like Trump, are just a bad loser.
Read this and enjoy!
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/21/federal-judge-tosses-trump-suit-over-pennsylvania-election-results-439010
That’s a load of rubbish.
Exactly.
You’re paranoid.
Kinda gotta assume this was written before the Special Prosecutors report and Biden’s press conference after.
Not only should he not win next year, not only should he drop out now for another democrat, but he should step down.
The man is a danger to himself, to the US and to the world. He is not mentally fit for the job.
The writers of the US constitution thought that the Cabinet Ministers would have the best interests of the country at heart; and the 25th amendment. would be invoked. This is apparent that was wrong thinking. They only have their own best interests at heart.
Was that before or after he used senility as a ploy to get off criminal charges?
Hahahaha! All this work for nothing. Anyone see the latest presser with Biden?
Time to run another poll I’d say.
Can’t get over how much this author wants Trump to lose, it’s palpable. He should take Jamie Dimon’s advice to stop Trump hating and grow up.
Peter F Lee
I am noticing that more and more frequently, I am briefly scanning the actual articles as they offer few insights and opinions that seem valid: in fact I find the commenters (posters?) are far more insightful and value all their opinions much more even the ones I do not agree with. Even those that cannot handle the voting system.
Peter F Lee
I have just determined where the ‘Unherd Reader’ comes from.
For reasons not to be discussed, I renewed my unherd subscription and Lo and behold I am now ‘Unherd Reader’
see above.
What?!
A
Please note when you renew your subscription, it is necessary to call up ‘edit Profile’ and re-add your name, because it gets blanked out and defaults to Unherd Reader. If you do not add your alias (name) then your name will default to ‘Unherd Reader’ as we have seen with a couple of the commenters recently.
If you wish to change your alias (name) go into
<Account> top right on home page
<Profile> Horizontal menu middle of page
add/edit your alias (name).
<Save> scroll to bottom of page and save your entry
So in other words, for the sake of clarity any and all commentators who’ve been assigned the UnHerd tag need to follow the steps you’ve outlined above and pick a name for themselves already.
Interesting parameters and analysis. Thank you.
I think the more likely scenario is that one or the other, or both, don’t medically make it to election day.
Sounds like a load of copium to me.
I’m sure the author wishes his badly timed data disgorge could have been pulled. It is out of date following Biden’s meltdown last night. Biden went past “the tipping point” with his disastrous impromptu presser trying to respond to Hur’s report. Biden is finished. If you are still wanting a viable path to defeat Trump, it is now through RFK Jr..
Did anybody, actually, wade through those stats?!
Bullocks.
Whether you love him or loathe him it’s clear that Trump is facing Biden’s other’ hidden advantage’. The fact that the entire US establishment is working against him. The different ways Trump and Biden have been treated for committing the same’ crimes’ is jaw dropping. A good summary here. https://open.substack.com/pub/lowstatus/p/topped-trump?r=evzeq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
A more useful poll might be who will you not vote for and why? The outcome seems to depend on who puts off voters most with plenty of obvious obstacles to trip over before November. Are all US elections as emotional as this? Is it going to depend on which is greater: a visceral hatred of Democrats or disgust at what Trump says?
As Kissinger once said of the Iran-Iraq war, it’s a pity they can’t both lose, and that’s how I feel about this year’s US election.
Even if I could persuade myself that Biden and the Dems at least represent a hold-your-nose-and-vote-for-the-establishment option (which they don’t anyway), Biden himself will descend into outright senility between now and 2028, and for that to happen with the world going the way it is right now could very easily lead to a WW3 that the West would lose.
Trump, as far as I can see, is substantially a protest vote against the system as well as whatever Trump voters think he represents. I sympathise with the nihilist instincts of Americans voting that way, but it won’t lead to good politics unfortunately. I would – on balance – prefer to see Trump win, but that’s really more down to how utterly awful Biden and the Democrats are these days – they are not fit to govern and deserve the boot.
But honestly, can America really not do better than a choice like this? Isn’t it easy to see that America would be so much better off if it was, say, Ron de Santis vs Robert Kennedy? If America’s two party system can only produce candidates like this, then America needs a new system.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate.
BWAHAHAHA!