Perhaps it’s a matter of “considering the source,” but a new battleground state poll from Rasmussen Reports suggests that President Biden will likely lose the battle at the ballot box if he’s still the nominee in November.
And, as the data suggests, if Biden loses, congressional Democrats will go along with him.
Donald Trump’s favorite pollster surveyed 5,605 voters in battleground states between July 5 and 12, meaning the survey ended the day before a sniper attempted to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday.
The poll included 1,101 Arizona voters, 1,015 Georgia voters, 1,025 Michigan voters, 761 Nevada voters, 1,041 Pennsylvania voters and 1,020 Wisconsin voters, and found that 48% of respondents voted for Biden in 2020 and just 47% supported Trump’s reelection.
And they conclude that in these benchmark states that determine the Electoral College, everything is going the way the Trump-Vance team wants it to.
In both binary polls and scenarios involving close candidates, Trump leads comfortably either way: In binary contests, Trump leads Biden 49% to 44%.
And in a scenario that includes a minor candidate, the lead is six points (46% to 40%), with Robert Kennedy Jr. garnering 7% support and no other candidate receiving more than 1% support in the battleground state.
Each state has some variation.
Trump leads Biden by 8 points in Nevada, which may be out of reach, but he holds more modest leads of 4 points in Pennsylvania and 3 points in Wisconsin, two states that are crucial to Biden’s victory in November’s election. Kennedy has fared best in Georgia, where he won 10% of the vote.
The election trajectory will lead to some interesting support ratings for the major party candidates.
While both candidates are very unpopular with more than 40% of respondents, Biden is viewed more poorly than the more polarizing Trump (45% to 41%), and as the incumbent, Biden does not evoke as many favorable feelings as Trump.
Overall, Trump is doing well with a 50% approval rating and 49% disapproval rating, while Biden has a 44% approval rating and 55% disapproval rating.
And there is still plenty in this data set that should be of concern to Joe Biden and his supporters.
While 64% of black voters in battleground states say they would support Biden in a choice scenario, the incumbent president stands to lose significant support among Hispanics and whites.
Trump has 52% support among white voters and 54% support among Hispanics, compared with 41% and 37% for Biden, respectively.
Trump is tied with Biden among battleground voters under 40, but has an eight-point lead among voters aged 41 to 64 and a five-point lead among seniors.
Biden’s voting delays extend to lower-tier constituencies as well.
Poll respondents are more likely to vote for Republicans than Democrats in House elections, 47% to 43%, a phenomenon that helps explain why more than 30 Democratic House members have called on Biden to abandon his campaign.
They just aren’t ready to abandon an otherwise competitive campaign for a fatally flawed candidate, and the data here bears that out.
In Rasmussen’s state-by-state poll, all Democratic Senate candidates are ahead of Biden.
The poll was sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank that is ecstatic with the results.
“The Trump campaign couldn’t be better off, as polls in key battleground states show. No doubt battleground state voters were frightened by President Biden’s performance in the debate in late June, which is why the tables have turned so quickly. Former President Donald Trump currently holds a commanding lead in battleground states, with a favorability rating of 50%. Republicans also hold solid leads in lower-tier districts, suggesting the Republican Party could win a landslide victory in 2024,” asserts Chris Talgo, editor-in-chief of Heartland.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign says it will keep on pushing as another tough week draws to a close.
“President Biden looks forward to returning to the campaign trail as soon as possible,” the campaign memo said. The campaign is sending deputy chairman Doug Emhoff to Arizona this weekend to meet with black voters before participating in the Skills Challenge and Three-Point Contest at WNBA All-Star Weekend.
Meanwhile, Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, will be campaigning while the president recovers from the coronavirus. They’ll hold a joint rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday and in Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio, on Monday.
From there, the two will make separate forays into battleground states: Vance heads to Radford, Virginia, on Monday night, while Trump has an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
