It didn’t take long, after an alleged 81 million Americans voted for Joe Biden, for the polls to star showing that almost everyone, including Democrats, was concerned about Biden’s advanced age and cognitive decline.
I guess Biden voters didn’t care about putting Joe Biden in the White House instead of the dementia ward where he belonged, but now enough are less than thrilled about the idea of doing it again. And the polls are showing that it’s likely helping Trump in 2024.
But are the polls wrong? I’ve heard countless people warning that the polls are deceiving us, that they’re inflating Trump’s support so that he’ll win the nomination and then get crushed in the general election.
Of course, it’s usually former Trump supporters saying this, so this theory should be taken with a grain of salt.
But several Democrat experts aren’t buying the idea that the polls are boosting Trump—they’re hitting the panic button.
“I’m looking at polling data, and I’m looking at all of it. The president’s numbers are just not good—and they’re not getting any better,” famed Democrat strategist James Carville recently noted. “I talk to a lot of people who do a lot of congressional-level polling and state polling, and they’re all saying the same thing. There’s not an outlier; there’s not another opinion … The question is, has the country made up its mind?”According to Carville, Democrat insiders aren’t disagreeing with him, but are telling him to keep quiet about it.
Former Obama advisor David Axelrod similarly hit the panic button on Joe Biden.
'The greatest concern is that his biggest liability is the one thing he can't change. Among all the unpredictables there is one thing that is sure: the age arrow only points in one direction,” Axelrod said. “Only [Joe Biden] can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country’s?"
Joe Biden reportedly called Axelrod a p***k for his assessment, but Axelrod isn’t backing down.
“I don’t care about them thinking I’m a p***k — that’s fine,” Axelrod told Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. “I hope they don’t think the polls are wrong because they’re not.”
Axelrod had been responding to the New York Times/Siena poll showing Trump ahead in five battleground states and gaining support among non-white voters and young voters. But the truth is that multiple polls are showing the same thing, so that poll can’t be dismissed as an outlier. In 2020, polls overwhelmingly gave Biden the advantage. The polls may have underestimated Trump’s support, but when you compare 2020 polling to 2024 polling, it’s obvious that the dynamics of this race are considerably different.
"I think he has a 50-50 shot here, but no better than that, maybe a little worse," Axelrod predicted. "He thinks he can cheat nature here and it's really risky. They've got a real problem if they're counting on Trump to win it for them. I remember Hillary doing that, too."
In 2016, polls almost universally showed Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in for the presidency. Heck, I can remember being convinced for a year she’d win easily against Trump because the polls all showed it. Of course, that didn’t happen. If Trump consistently underperforms in the polls, there’s no reason not to believe he’s headed for a landslide victory.
