Joe Biden wasn’t exactly the top choice of Democrat voters in 2020, but he convinced them that he was the only electable Democrat in the clown car of candidates. Going into 2024, Joe Biden is, once again, not the candidate that Democrats want — polls have been showing that for nearly three years now — but since he is the incumbent, they’re kind of stuck with him. This time, however, the electability question isn’t working in his favor.
If you look at the Real Clear Politics average of Trump v. Biden in 2020 vs. 2024, you’ll notice that Biden had a consistent lead in 2020, whereas in 2024, Trump currently has a small lead. This is terrible news for Joe Biden, who had an average spread of +7.2 over Trump in 2020 polling but only won by +4.5 in the actual election and by the slimmest of margins in the battleground states that determined the outcome of the race. So whether you see it as Biden underperforming or Trump overperforming in the polls, it’s clear that the former president is doing much better now than he ever was in 2020.
Trump is likely to continue to outperform Biden in national match-up polls, but it’s not a national popular vote that elects a president. The Electoral College does. And in another blow to Biden’s alleged electability, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump maintains a slight edge in the seven states that ultimately decided the 2020 presidential election: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, and Michigan. In these states, Trump has a lead of 41% support compared to Biden’s 35%, while 24% of voters remained undecided.
New polls from Emerson College Polling back this up. Trump has a 2-point lead in Emerson’s latest poll of Wisconsin and a 9-point lead in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania poll found that 45% of respondents backed Trump, while 36% preferred Biden. Another 11% said they’d support someone else, and 8% report being undecided.
The swing in Trump’s favor since the 2020 election can be explained by Biden’s poor performance in the White House. In addition to several foreign policy blunders, his handling of the economy and the southern border are hurting him and his party. In short, Biden’s incompetence has given Trump and Republicans the advantage on the issues Americans find most important.
According to a recent Gallup poll, the GOP has reached its highest standing on the economy in over 30 years. Fifty-three percent of Americans have more trust in Republicans and only 39% of Americans trust Democrats more, giving the GOP a 14-point advantage on this ever-so-important issue. A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that Americans also overwhelmingly trust Republicans on the issue of immigration, and a new I&I/TIPP poll found that 72% of Americans believe the situation at the southern border is a crisis or a major problem, and Joe Biden largely gets the blame for that.
Related: Biden’s Border Crisis May Doom Him and His Party in 2024
It’s hard to see how Biden can win. Democrats see it, too. That’s why there have been so many whispers about replacing him, but time is running out for this to actually happen if the Democratic Party wants a chance at being able to coalesce behind a candidate before their convention next year.
Will Biden acknowledge that he’s not viable and drop out? It’s hard to guess who else in the Democratic Party might be electable, but from where I sit, it certainly looks like Joe Biden is not.
