This week, Nevada hosts its party nomination contests, drawing political attention from across the globe.
On Tuesday, in South Carolina’s nonbinding GOP primary, former governor Nikki Haley was humiliatingly defeated. But in the elections that reward delegates, former president Donald Trump is projected to glide in the GOP caucuses on Thursday, while president Joe Biden easily won the Democratic primary.
Even though Nevada has witnessed some of the closest general election results in the previous two presidential campaigns, that lack of competition betrays that reality. That might be why Democrats have reason to be worried about Trump’s lead over Biden in the most recent polls conducted in Nevada.
Furthermore, Nevada represents a pattern across the country. For months on end, Biden has been plainly behind, a position no probable Democratic presidential candidate has been in since 2004.
Over the weekend, an NBC News poll garnered a lot of attention for its possible general election results, which showed Trump with 47% support and Biden with 42%. It caught my attention since it was one of three polls published in the last week that gave Trump a 4- or 5-point lead among registered voters. The other two were AWN/SSRS and Reuters/Ipsos.
Trump maintains a lead of approximately 2 points, even after averaging these results with last week’s Quinnipiac University poll, which showed Biden ahead by 6 points. Over the last half-year, this lead has been rather constant. While certain polls, like Quinnipiac’s, have Biden ahead, Trump has the majority of the evidence.
(The states in which Biden is now lagging across the nation would contribute over 270 Electoral College votes, which would be sufficient to cause his defeat in a general election.)
The Democrats are in a much different position than they were in previous cycles. Even when taking into account only average polling results, Biden was consistently lagging behind Trump in the 2020 campaign. In every single national survey that was eligible for publishing by AWN, he was further behind Trump.
Further back in time, Trump was in the lead for a brief time in the 2016 average. It was subsequent to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Also, in 2012, Republican Mitt Romney could have been in the lead after the first GOP debate, but in the end, President Obama was far ahead. Obama was likewise in a virtual neck-and-neck race with Republican John McCain throughout the 2008 general election, with the exception of a brief period immediately following the GOP convention.
The last Republican president to routinely outperform his Democratic opponent was George W. Bush in 2004. During the summer of 2004, Bush’s lead over Democrat John Kerry would solidify following the Republican convention.
In contrast to this year, Bush was the incumbent in 2004, just as Biden is now.
Early voting always favours the incumbent. After 2020, Trump was in office. Just before he arrived? Since the introduction of modern polling, almost anyone has. By this point in the campaign, incumbents who had fallen behind early on had recovered their positions, like Ronald Reagan in 1984. Even though they would fall behind throughout the most of the campaign, incumbents like Gerald Ford in 1976 were still in the lead.
Thomas Dewey lost an upset in 1948 after trading leads with Harry Truman in the early going. Dewey eventually settled into a permanent lead in the polls.
That he lacks support from the majority of voters is where Biden’s problems stem from. For nearly two years, his approval rating has remained stagnant at around 40%. The situation is not improving for him. So far in his first term as president, Biden has the lowest approval rating of any elected leader.
We are approaching a point when there is a correlation between present approval ratings and approval ratings by election time, which should be concerning for Democrats. The likelihood that Biden will have a low popularity rating when voters cast their ballots this autumn grows with each passing day.
Less well-known candidates’ popularity tends to fluctuate the most between now and the main election.
Except for Trump, this is not the case. His name is almost as well-known as Biden’s. Even though voters are familiar with and dislike Trump, they still tend to favour him over Biden.
This seems to be working against Biden’s efforts to use attack advertising to sway the race in his favour.
Furthermore, Biden’s problems aren’t exclusive to his campaign. Adults’ self-identification as Democrats hit a new low in 2023, according to recent Gallup polls. The percentage of adults who identified as Democrats has dropped to 27%, the lowest level since at least 1988 (or 1991 when included independent leaners), with 43% including them.
Biden should take heart in the fact that he is close behind. Even if Trump maintains his 2-point lead until Election Day, it won’t be safe. Nearly nine months remain until the autumn election. We do not have any historical parallel for the fact that Trump is still facing four criminal indictments.
We don’t have encouraging precedence for incumbents to be trailing in presidential campaigns, and Biden’s inherent unpopularity isn’t helping matters. So, it’s bad news for Biden.
