Can Biden Win in November? A Look At the Polling Averages

July 19, 2024

“Applying the current polling situation to the electoral map paints a frightening picture for Democrats.”

— Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman, writing for The UVA Center for Politics Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

There is a lot to discuss in the battleground state polling. Today, I will focus on the polling averages. My next post will dig deeper into some of the most recent battleground state polls. For now, let’s take a look at the polling averages for both battleground states and the nation as a whole and see what they tell us about Biden’s chances to win in November.

Table 1 shows the 538 polling averages for the battleground states in this year’s election. Until recently, I would have not included Minnesota but the polling there has changed my mind. These states total 103 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. If the election were held today, Trump would capture 93 of these votes, which would put him over the top with at least 271. In recent weeks, the battleground map appears to be extending to Maine, Nebraska-02, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia. While there is little recent public polling in those jurisdictions – save Virginia – there seems to be either internal polling or strong anecdotal evidence from the field that these places might be ripe for Republican pick-ups. These represent an additional 26 potential electoral votes for Trump (Maine-02 went for Trump in 2020, so he can only add another three electoral votes from that state).

Sources: 538; Wikipedia; 270toWin

Not only is Biden losing every battleground state he won in 2020, except Minnesota, but he is losing a number of them by significant margins. North Carolina, a state he almost won last time and has been on his radar for picking up this year, appears out of reach at the moment. The campaign will have to invest heavy resources into the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in order to have a chance a victory in November. This is a better route to victory than focusing on Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia - at least according to the current polling. In any case, it is hard to see how Biden can win the election if he loses Pennsylvania.

This means that Biden has to abandon his hopes of expanding the map, at least right now. The people and money resources invested in places like North Carolina and Florida will probably have to be redeployed. The result will be giving up on those states. However, because of the threat of Virginia falling into battleground status, Biden may have to redeploy resources from North Carolina to Virginia. It’s a real pickle, especially since contributions to the campaign appear to be drying up as long as Biden remains in the race. If he does not withdraw, he needs a lot more money - and fast. But he is not likely getting it, and least in time to make the difference he needs to start making immediately.

It gets even worse if the national polling swings to Trump. University of Virginia’s Center for Politics has run some projections on state vote totals should the national popular vote run even and if there is a 3.3 point swing to Trump from his 2020 result. Both scenarios show that Biden would lose the election. In the latter scenario, the president would lose New Hampshire, Maine, and Minnesota too (not shown on table).

Source: UVA Center for Politics

This should concern us about Biden’s chances to win even if the race is even, as he has suggested. However, the national race is not even. After the June 27 debate, at which time the national polling average was essentially even, Trump opened up a 2.5 point lead within a week. After three weeks that average had closed to a 2.0 point advantage for Trump. However, there is bad news for the Biden campaign from CBS News. Their polling partner YouGov has found that Trump has a five point lead nationally and even has a majority of support. While I am not convinced a majority of voters would actually support Trump, this reputable poll has moved the polling average significantly to Trump +3.2.

Source: 538

There is a chance that this significant increase in Trump’s support in the YouGov poll is just a sympathy bump related to the assassination attempt. Considering Trump is polling over 50% in this survey, I would guess that’s what it is. It’s not a big bump - Reagan got an eight point bump after he was shot. But like Reagan, this will not last. Still, Trump was up by 2.0 points in the polling average last Friday. It would be foolish to believe that an erasure of this 1.3 point increase will help Biden at all. Trump still has the advantage in the polling.

Perhaps the Biden campaign thinks it can gain ground in the Kennedy vote or other third party candidates. Perhaps they consider these votes to be actually undecideds. However, in looking at the crosstabs in the polling it does not appear to look like that. There are not as many undecideds in this race as there are voters who do not want either Biden or Trump to be president. Kennedy seems to be taking as much support from Trump as from Biden, in some states perhaps even more. Stein and West take a little support from Biden, which could make a difference in a very close race in some states - but the race is starting to not look close anymore.

No Republican except for Bush in 2004 has won the popular vote since 1988. Trump never lead Clinton in the polling average in 2016. He never led Biden in 2020. He has been leading Biden everyday for ten months except for two days in the week before the June 27 debate. That Trump is winning as consistently as he has been has to give Democratic strategists pause. And there is no indication right now it is going to get better for the president. The race is trending away from him.

It’s hard to see where Team Biden gets any optimism from the polling right now. Sure, they can look at Trump’s long, boring, and insane convention speech from last night and think they can beat this candidate. It would seem that any good Democratic candidate should be able to beat Trump. The question is, however, why is Biden not just losing to Trump but losing more and more ground to him? That is the question Biden and his inner circle have to be realistic about. It is hard to see how they can make a plausible argument that he can win. When we next turn to the battleground state polls, we will see some reasons why he might be losing. Unfortunately for him, the reason has a name - Joe Biden. Of course, this means there is a chance for a different nominee to rescue the 2024 Democratic campaign.

Here’s a final thought from a Republican governor about what might make the difference in this election:

“It’s going to get very close in a lot of those tighter states. There’s going to be more energy. I think the Democratic Party would effectively be rewarded, if you will, by independents for saying, ’Hey, none of us liked that whole Biden-Trump ticket to start with. You guys had the courage to change your nominee out.’ And it’s almost like a rewarding and a re-energizing of the party there.”

— New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R)