by Robert Romano
Former President Donald Trump continues to lead incumbent President Joe Biden in the most important battleground states in the latest Morning Consult-Bloomberg poll taken October 30 to November 3 with an overall 47 percent to 41 percent margin.
Trump leads Biden individually in Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada in both the two-way race and in four-way race between Trump, Biden, Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Cornell West.
In Georgia, Trump leads with 43 percent, Biden garners 34 percent, Kennedy 10 percent and West 1 percent.
In Arizona, Trump gets 40 percent, Biden 36 percent, Kennedy 11 percent and West 1 percent.
In Michigan, Trump and Biden are tied in Michigan 43 percent to 43 percent in the two-way race, and Biden leads there by 1 point in the four-way race, 38 to 37 percent, with Kennedy getting 10 percent and West getting 2 percent.
In North Carolina, Trump gets 42 percent, Biden 33 percent, Kennedy 9 percent and West 2 percent.
In Pennsylvania, Trump gets 41 percent, Biden 38 percent, Kennedy 8 percent and West 1 percent.
In Wisconsin, Trump gets 38 percent, Biden 36 percent, Kennedy 13 percent and West 1 percent.
And in Nevada, Trump gets 39 percent, Biden 35 percent, Kennedy 11 percent and West 1 percent.
The results confirm other swing state polls recently taken, including the New York Times-Siena poll taken October 22 to November 3, showing Trump winning Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Obviously, that’s all really bad news for President Biden, with increasing calls for Biden to step aside for 2024 growing even though alternatives like Kamala Harris do even worse than Biden does in the polls. Trump has been easily leading Harris in most recent polls taken, according to the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls, showing Trump with a 46 percent to 42 percent edge.
Giving Biden some breathing room were the November 7 elections, which saw Democrats hold onto the Kentucky governor and pick up the House of Delegates in Virginia, in turn fostering some confidence that Democrats will still show up at the polls in 2024 with the incumbent Biden running. Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s campaign manager in the former president’s successful 2012 reelection bid wrote in Politico on November 13, “There’s No Need to Panic Over Biden,” arguing that early polls taken right now are unreliable, that polls showed Mitt Romney beating Obama too, but in hindsight Obama won reelection relatively easily.
There’s some truth to that. Incumbent presidents win about 66 percent of the time when they stand for reelection, even ones who appeared weak at the time.
On the other hand, weak economies had the tendency to oust sitting presidents in 1932, 1976, 1980, 1992 and 2020. Obama did not have to contend with high inflation or a potential recession on the horizon, nor did Biden have third party challengers like Kennedy and West pulling votes from him.
In that sense, there is still a lot of time in the race for conditions in the country economically to improve, potentially improving Biden’s poll numbers as the Republican primary process continues apace with Trump still easily leading the GOP field by 44 points on average with just a short time before the contests begin in the Iowa Caucus on Jan. 15, 2024 and the New Hampshire primary likely on Jan. 23, 2024.
But by now, with a confirming set of polls from Morning Consult-Bloomberg and New York Times-Sienna, showing Biden trailing in these swing states, the hour grows late.
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Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
