If you're on Team Biden, you're looking at the polls, and you're freaking out. Trump is not only ahead in most national polls, but also in battleground state polling. Trump's lead may be slim in national polling—his RealClearPolitics average lead is currently +1.1 points—but Trump is doing better in 2024 than he ever was in 2020 or 2016.
Naturally, with all signs pointing to Biden being in serious trouble the left is trying desperately to find a silver lining to give their base hope.
According to a recent article from Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times, Trump's lead in the polls is actually a mirage because it relies heavily on support from low-propensity voters.
He reaches this conclusion by dissecting the data from the most recent trio of New York Times/Siena national polls, which indicates that despite Biden's broader struggles in polling, he has consistently held a commanding advantage among individuals who cast their ballots in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, Trump's surge in support is primarily fueled by prospective voters who didn't vote the previous election.
"Importantly, these low-turnout voters are often from Democratic constituencies. Many back Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate. But in our polling, Biden wins just three-quarters of Democratic-leaning voters who didn’t vote in the last cycle, even as almost all high-turnout Democratic-leaners continue to support him," Cohns explains. "This trend illustrates the disconnect between Trump’s lead in the polls and Democratic victories in lower-turnout special elections. And it helps explain Trump’s gains among young and nonwhite voters, who tend to be among the least engaged."
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Cohn concludes that Trump's "dependence on these voters could make the race more volatile" as we get closer to November. "As voters tune in over the next six months, there’s a chance that disengaged but traditionally Democratic voters could revert to their usual partisan leanings. Alternately, they might stay home, which could also help Biden."
The poll data indicates that less engaged voters not only pay less attention but also hold distinct political views and obtain their information from a scary thing called "different sources."
"While Biden holds nearly all of his support from voters who consume traditional mainstream media — national newspapers, television networks and the like — the disengaged are far likelier to report getting their news from social media. Biden defectors are concentrated in this group," Cohn says.
According to Cohn, these low-turnout voters are difficult for pollsters because they are very unpredictable. "While millions of them will undoubtedly turn out this November, no one knows just how many of them will ultimately show up — let alone exactly which ones will do so," he writes. "This is always a challenge for pollsters. But in this cycle, if enough of them stay home, Biden could do much better on Election Day than it appears in the polls."
Of course, the opposite is also true. Let's not forget that first-time voters are believed to have tipped the election to Barack Obama. Just because people haven't voted before, the right circumstances with the right candidate can bring them out in droves. Today, the economy is hurting everyone, and voters remember how much better things were under Trump. That's certainly a good recipe for Trump to have a very good Election Day because of first-time and low-propensity voters.
Given the incredible enthusiasm we're seeing for Trump compared to the crickets for Joe Biden, it's absurd that Cohn doesn't even consider that.
