If The Election Was Held Today
Well, of course, it’s not…but a recent poll gave a snapshot of the mood of voters one year out from the 2024 presidential election…and it’s caused some Democrats to have enhanced concern.
The reporting is from POLITICO, and it cites research from Stack Data Strategy which polled 15,000 Americans and then projected results down to the state and local level. As I’ve said before, national polls are worthless since we don’t elect presidents by popular vote, but rather through the Electoral College…which makes this research much more valuable.
Their review of the data suggests that if the election were to be held today, Donald Trump would defeat Joe Biden 292 electoral votes to 246…remember that the magic number for winning is 270. They note that Biden would narrowly win the popular vote, 49% to 48%, but the Electoral College would not be close.
The reporting notes that Trump’s projected victory is based on him winning the four states that were decided by the closest margin in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. All four were won by Trump in 2016, won by Biden in 2020…and the projection shows them swinging back to Trump by margins ranging from 1 to 3 percent in each of the four states.
And for those worrying about third party candidates, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Cornel West, turns out it actually helps Trump pick up 6 more electoral votes, from Nevada.
A few other headlines…the survey also shows Trump defeating both Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom…but it shows Biden crushing Ron DeSantis with an Electoral College landslide of 359 to 179.
Much can happen in the next year…who would have expected a terror attack on Israel in the past month, for example…but for what it’s worth, that’s the “year out” snapshot…and you can bet operatives on all sides are reading it closely, given the polling entity’s good track record…including correctly predicting the 2022 midterms.
