Polls of the Presidential Race

[lpetrich]

CNN Poll: Trump losing ground to Biden amid chaotic week - CNNPolitics

The survey also finds a growing majority of Americans feel racism is a big problem in the country today and that the criminal justice system in America favors whites over blacks. More than 8 in 10 also say that the peaceful protests that have spread throughout the nation following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers are justified. Americans now consider race relations as important a campaign issue as the economy and health care, according to the survey.

...
In the race for the White House, among registered voters, Trump stands 14 points behind Biden, who officially secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination in CNN's delegate estimate on Saturday. The 41% who say they back the President is the lowest in CNN's tracking on this question back to April 2019, and Biden's 55% support is his highest mark yet.

 Historical polling for United States presidential elections
 United States presidential approval rating

Good-enough polling data started in 1936, and it has continued to the present, for a total of 21 elections. Looking at the last six months of each rate (or less if necessary), polling numbers tend to stay roughly constant, and are usually continuous with the election results.

There are some exceptions, and I must comment on them.

In 1936, the race looked close, with the results being more divergent. This was the race with the biggest flop in polling, the Literary Digest poll. That publication did a massive effort, but it involved car registrations and the like, and that produced a sampling bias in favor of the affluent. So that poll gave an inadequate picture of the electorate, and it showed. It predicted the victory of the Republican, Alf Landon, when it was FDR who won, and who won by a sizable margin.

In 1948, Truman beat Dewey, with some newspapers having anticipated Dewey's victory, complete with composing "Dewey won" stories. But it was a close one, with Truman increasing in popularity, and Dewey having a last-minute dip in popularity.

The 1968 election was a weird one, with Hubert Humphrey having a major drop in popularity in August and September, and then recovering -- but not enough to defeat Richard Nixon. Also in it was George Wallace, and he got a small bump at the time of Humphrey's drop. But it leveled off when Humphrey recovered.

In July 1976, Jimmy Carter was far ahead of Jerry Ford, but they then approached each other, with Carter narrowly beating Ford.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis was well ahead of George Bush I, but the elder Bush gradually caught up with him and won with a similar margin.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, George Bush I, and Ross Perot were about equal. Then in July, Perot dropped out, and Clinton surged - and had a good margin for the rest of the race, even after Perot's later return to the race.

Looking at 2016, it fit the pattern of the other races very well, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump very close.

 

[Harry Bosch]

CNN Poll: Trump losing ground to Biden amid chaotic week - CNNPolitics

The survey also finds a growing majority of Americans feel racism is a big problem in the country today and that the criminal justice system in America favors whites over blacks. More than 8 in 10 also say that the peaceful protests that have spread throughout the nation following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers are justified. Americans now consider race relations as important a campaign issue as the economy and health care, according to the survey.

...
In the race for the White House, among registered voters, Trump stands 14 points behind Biden, who officially secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination in CNN's delegate estimate on Saturday. The 41% who say they back the President is the lowest in CNN's tracking on this question back to April 2019, and Biden's 55% support is his highest mark yet.

 Historical polling for United States presidential elections
 United States presidential approval rating

Good-enough polling data started in 1936, and it has continued to the present, for a total of 21 elections. Looking at the last six months of each rate (or less if necessary), polling numbers tend to stay roughly constant, and are usually continuous with the election results.

There are some exceptions, and I must comment on them.

In 1936, the race looked close, with the results being more divergent. This was the race with the biggest flop in polling, the Literary Digest poll. That publication did a massive effort, but it involved car registrations and the like, and that produced a sampling bias in favor of the affluent. So that poll gave an inadequate picture of the electorate, and it showed. It predicted the victory of the Republican, Alf Landon, when it was FDR who won, and who won by a sizable margin.

In 1948, Truman beat Dewey, with some newspapers having anticipated Dewey's victory, complete with composing "Dewey won" stories. But it was a close one, with Truman increasing in popularity, and Dewey having a last-minute dip in popularity.

The 1968 election was a weird one, with Hubert Humphrey having a major drop in popularity in August and September, and then recovering -- but not enough to defeat Richard Nixon. Also in it was George Wallace, and he got a small bump at the time of Humphrey's drop. But it leveled off when Humphrey recovered.

In July 1976, Jimmy Carter was far ahead of Jerry Ford, but they then approached each other, with Carter narrowly beating Ford.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis was well ahead of George Bush I, but the elder Bush gradually caught up with him and won with a similar margin.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, George Bush I, and Ross Perot were about equal. Then in July, Perot dropped out, and Clinton surged - and had a good margin for the rest of the race, even after Perot's later return to the race.

Looking at 2016, it fit the pattern of the other races very well, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump very close.

I think that it's just way too early. Democrats can't get complacent like we did in 2016. The economy is rebounding, there is potential good news regarding COVID, wall street is booming again, and some dems are embracing political suicide (defund police). Trump could have a big rebound.

 

[Brian63]

Also, there is no rock bottom with Trump. If he does not improve in the next several months, he may very well consider provoking a war with another country to gin up his hyper-nationalist rhetoric and prompt people to support the incumbent president during wartime, as changing leaders would be viewed as too risky.

Recently I have become more pro-active with the Democrat party locally, and it feels so much better to be hopeful and active, rather than hopeful and passive. This is a conservative district, and many strangers in the stores have expressed comments like "I like your hat" or such. Hopefully it encourages them to realize they are not alone, and to then become more outspoken themselves, which would spread the sentiment further to others still.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The worse the polls get, the more desperate Trump and lap dogs are going to get. Expect massive amounts of voter suppression, intimidation and just outright cheating as things move forward. The smaller the difference in actual votes, the more effective those efforts become.

Don't get complacent and because that will just give Susan Collins more reasons to be slightly concerned.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Real Clear Politics

Biden - 49.6%
Trump - 41.6%

Biden 8.0% +

Texas - Trump 2.2%
Ohio - Biden 1.0%
Florida - Biden 3.4%
Pennsylvania - Biden 3.3%
Arizona - Biden 3.4%
Wisconsin - Biden 3.4%
Michigan - Biden 7.3%
North Carolina - Trump 0.3%

To win re-election, Trump needs to run the table. And more and more states are sliding into the swing state category.

 

[barbos]

CNN Poll: Trump losing ground to Biden amid chaotic week - CNNPolitics

The survey also finds a growing majority of Americans feel racism is a big problem in the country today and that the criminal justice system in America favors whites over blacks. More than 8 in 10 also say that the peaceful protests that have spread throughout the nation following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers are justified. Americans now consider race relations as important a campaign issue as the economy and health care, according to the survey.

...
In the race for the White House, among registered voters, Trump stands 14 points behind Biden, who officially secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination in CNN's delegate estimate on Saturday. The 41% who say they back the President is the lowest in CNN's tracking on this question back to April 2019, and Biden's 55% support is his highest mark yet.

 Historical polling for United States presidential elections
 United States presidential approval rating

Good-enough polling data started in 1936, and it has continued to the present, for a total of 21 elections. Looking at the last six months of each rate (or less if necessary), polling numbers tend to stay roughly constant, and are usually continuous with the election results.

There are some exceptions, and I must comment on them.

In 1936, the race looked close, with the results being more divergent. This was the race with the biggest flop in polling, the Literary Digest poll. That publication did a massive effort, but it involved car registrations and the like, and that produced a sampling bias in favor of the affluent. So that poll gave an inadequate picture of the electorate, and it showed. It predicted the victory of the Republican, Alf Landon, when it was FDR who won, and who won by a sizable margin.

In 1948, Truman beat Dewey, with some newspapers having anticipated Dewey's victory, complete with composing "Dewey won" stories. But it was a close one, with Truman increasing in popularity, and Dewey having a last-minute dip in popularity.

The 1968 election was a weird one, with Hubert Humphrey having a major drop in popularity in August and September, and then recovering -- but not enough to defeat Richard Nixon. Also in it was George Wallace, and he got a small bump at the time of Humphrey's drop. But it leveled off when Humphrey recovered.

In July 1976, Jimmy Carter was far ahead of Jerry Ford, but they then approached each other, with Carter narrowly beating Ford.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis was well ahead of George Bush I, but the elder Bush gradually caught up with him and won with a similar margin.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, George Bush I, and Ross Perot were about equal. Then in July, Perot dropped out, and Clinton surged - and had a good margin for the rest of the race, even after Perot's later return to the race.

Looking at 2016, it fit the pattern of the other races very well, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump very close.

I think that it's just way too early. Democrats can't get complacent like we did in 2016. The economy is rebounding, there is potential good news regarding COVID, wall street is booming again, and some dems are embracing political suicide (defund police). Trump could have a big rebound.

Yeah, according to polls people trust Trump over Biden when it comes to economy. Stupid but it is what it is.

 

[lpetrich]

Why Joe Biden Is in Good Shape (for Now) - The New York Times

Five months before the election, Mr. Trump and his team are struggling to settle on a re-election message, absent the strong economy that they believed would be the centerpiece of their campaign. Defining Mr. Biden as “Sleepy Joe” has proved to be far bigger challenge than Mr. Trump faced in 2016, when he ran against “Crooked Hillary” — a political figure fiercely attacked for decades. And amid a pandemic, a recession and nationwide protests over racism and police brutality, his team can’t even seem to settle on a slogan.

Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump shows no sign of tempering the base-first strategy that has been at the core of his political identity as president. Throughout his time in the White House, Mr. Trump has never demonstrated a sustained interest or ability to connect with voters beyond his own coalition.


...
The problem with so much winning is that it doesn’t leave the president any room to grow. At the same time, there are early signs that he is losing some ground with the demographic groups that boosted him to victory four years ago, including white men, independents, voters without college degrees and evangelicals.

...
If he wants to expand his support, Mr. Trump must flip some Biden backers. To do that, he must do something truly extraordinary in an election already full of unprecedented moments: ignore his political instincts and reach out to the other side.

 

[lpetrich]

Wave of New Polling Suggests an Erosion of Trump’s Support - The New York Times

The coronavirus pandemic, a severe economic downturn and the widespread demonstrations in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody would pose a serious political challenge to any president seeking re-election. They are certainly posing one to President Trump.

His approval rating has fallen to 13.2 percentage points under water among registered or likely voters, down from negative 6.7 points on April 15, according to FiveThirtyEight estimates. And now a wave of new polls shows Joe Biden with a significant national lead, placing him in a stronger position to oust an incumbent president than any challenger since Bill Clinton in the summer of 1992.

He leads the president by around 10 percentage points in an average of recent live-interview telephone surveys of registered voters. It’s a four-point improvement over the six-point lead he held in a similar series of polls in late March and early April. Since then, Bernie Sanders has left the Democratic race, the severity of the coronavirus pandemic has become fully evident, and the president’s standing has gradually eroded.

The numbers for the change in Joe Biden's support from March/April to recently:

• CNN/SSRS 11 14
• ABC/Post 3 10
• Monmouth 3.5 11
• Quinnipac 8 11
• Fox News 4.5 8
• NBC/WSJ 7 7
• Average 6 10

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Wave of New Polling Suggests an Erosion of Trump’s Support - The New York Times

The coronavirus pandemic, a severe economic downturn and the widespread demonstrations in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody would pose a serious political challenge to any president seeking re-election. They are certainly posing one to President Trump.

His approval rating has fallen to 13.2 percentage points under water among registered or likely voters, down from negative 6.7 points on April 15, according to FiveThirtyEight estimates. And now a wave of new polls shows Joe Biden with a significant national lead, placing him in a stronger position to oust an incumbent president than any challenger since Bill Clinton in the summer of 1992.

He leads the president by around 10 percentage points in an average of recent live-interview telephone surveys of registered voters. It’s a four-point improvement over the six-point lead he held in a similar series of polls in late March and early April. Since then, Bernie Sanders has left the Democratic race, the severity of the coronavirus pandemic has become fully evident, and the president’s standing has gradually eroded.

The numbers for the change in Joe Biden's support from March/April to recently:

• CNN/SSRS 11 14
• ABC/Post 3 10
• Monmouth 3.5 11
• Quinnipac 8 11
• Fox News 4.5 8
• NBC/WSJ 7 7
• Average 6 10

I was expecting “East German judge” numbers from Fox, but they’re in the ballpark with the others.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Fox has actually been rather good as far as polling goes. The pollsters that seem to be outliers pro-Trump are The Hill-HarrisX, IBD/TIPP, Emerson, and up to recent polls, Rat Muffin, Rassmussen polls. There really has not been much good news for the Trumpsters recently.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Trump has a 9 point lead in Tennessee.

...

Trump won Tennessee by 26 points in 2016. Even if an outlier, Trump has lost substantial ground in Tennessee, which is bad news for NC, FL, VA, NV, and even TX! Man, if Biden won Texas... that would provide us a Daniel Bryan like payoff for 2020.

 

[PyramidHead]

We will see if the author of the 1994 crime bill, and the man who said he didn't want his kids growing up in "a racial jungle" in his speech opposing busing, just might be right man for this moment in American history.

Disclaimer 1: Trump is worse if you think saying the quiet part out loud is what makes someone bad

Disclaimer 2: Bernie Sanders is equally useless in this moment. His revolution was always the compromise, and America will regret turning it down.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

We will see if the author of the 1994 crime bill, and the man who said he didn't want his kids growing up in "a racial jungle" in his speech opposing busing, just might be right man for this moment in American history.

1994 Joe Biden isn't 2020 Joe Biden. 1977 Joe Biden sure as hell isn't 2020 Joe Biden. Few people, other than Trump zealots, with think otherwise.

2020 Donald Trump is even more racist than 1977/1994 Donald Trump.

 

[Elixir]

Yeah, according to polls people trust Trump over Biden when it comes to economy. Stupid but it is what it is.

That's no mystery. Trump has a 51% preference over Biden's 46%. First, there's the totally brainwashed 42% who still believe Trump was once a successful businessman rather than a serial failure, conman and fraudster. (Thanks, Mark Burnett) Then there is another 8% who think (perhaps correctly) that they can leverage Trump's unregulated capitalism to their own financial benefit. Finally there's the donor class, the 1% upon whom Trump reliably lavishes the taxpayers' riches.

But at the end of the day, unless the economy is the only consideration in the minds of those voters (with no thought toward health care, education, neo-nazi racism, the perception of the US as a bunch of idiots in the eyes of the rest of the world etc), 51% approval on economy isn't going to win him anything. Most of the people that Trump's policies benefit can do just fine without his blood money.

 

[Terrell]

He's already running ads here.

 

[Harry Bosch]

We will see if the author of the 1994 crime bill, and the man who said he didn't want his kids growing up in "a racial jungle" in his speech opposing busing, just might be right man for this moment in American history.

Disclaimer 1: Trump is worse if you think saying the quiet part out loud is what makes someone bad

Disclaimer 2: Bernie Sanders is equally useless in this moment. His revolution was always the compromise, and America will regret turning it down.

PH: I find this post incredibly ironic. You've changed your political views more than anyone that I know in the last few years.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

CNN's poll shows Biden ahead of Trump by 14%. Now Trumpo the clown is demanding and apology an retraction from CNN. I cannot remember anything like this, ever. Latest Gallup poll shows Trumpo's Job Approval rating dropping to just 39%. 57% disapprove. Just 146 days to election day. I do not see threatening CNN over a poll as a pathway to election day victory.

 

[Elixir]

CNN's poll shows Biden ahead of Trump by 14%. Now Trumpo the clown is demanding and apology an retraction from CNN. I cannot remember anything like this, ever. Latest Gallup poll shows Trumpo's Job Approval rating dropping to just 39%. 57% disapprove. Just 146 days to election day. I do not see threatening CNN over a poll as a pathway to election day victory.

Right - the "pathway to victory" is paved with denial of reality and blustering insistence that regardless of the vote count, he won. With the valiant Barr Toad by his side and Moscow Mitch bringing up the rear, their plan is to charge blindly into the Amerikan Kristalnacht and destroy anything that stands in their path. That includes democracy, the American electorate and anyone speaking the truth about anything.

 

[southernhybrid]

We will see if the author of the 1994 crime bill, and the man who said he didn't want his kids growing up in "a racial jungle" in his speech opposing busing, just might be right man for this moment in American history.

1994 Joe Biden isn't 2020 Joe Biden. 1977 Joe Biden sure as hell isn't 2020 Joe Biden. Few people, other than Trump zealots, with think otherwise.

2020 Donald Trump is even more racist than 1977/1994 Donald Trump.

He also failed to mention that the Congressional Black Caucus supported the crime bill. Plus, hind site is 20/20. What might look good on paper doesn't always work out as expected in reality.

And, most black folks didn't want their kids bused to all white schools. There was nothing wrong with being against being against forced busing. Biden wanted more money put into urban schools that were being under funded. Very few people want their kids to have to take long bus rides early in the morning, and leave all their friends behind. I guess PH doesn't know what Biden said back then about how wrong it was to think that a black kid would be better off if he was forced to attend a school that was mostly white. Busing was a bad idea. It didn't work out well. A better idea is to simply change school districts so they reflect the racial mix of the city. My town has done just that. Our schools here are all 40/60 black to white or 40/60 white to black. That's a start. Our neighborhoods are growing more integrated by the year. That also helps the schools become more racially diverse.

And yes. People do grow and change. At least the good ones do. So, it's stupid to look at how a person thought decades ago. Shit. Biden promoted gay marriage before Obama did. And, look at Mitt Romney. He was out there marching with the protesters who support the BLM movement. And, he had the balls to vote with the Dems to remove Trump from office. Who woulda thunk it?

 

[lpetrich]

‘Blood in the water’: Dems get unexpected opening against Trump in Iowa - POLITICO

Since the start of the year, Democrats in Iowa have added about twice as many active voters to their rolls as Republicans, nudging ahead in total registration for the first time in years. The farm economy has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. And though Trump still holds a small lead in the state, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, he’s now airing TV advertisements there — a tacit acknowledgment that the campaign anticipates a contest.

“We were approaching ‘done’ status — stick a fork in us,” Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said of the party’s status after the 2016 election.

Now, she said, “the worm is turning.”

...
On Sunday night, Trump — seemingly frustrated with the tilt of the electoral landscape against him — tweeted, “If I wasn’t constantly harassed for three years by fake and illegal investigations, Russia, Russia, Russia, and the Impeachment Hoax, I’d be up by 25 points on Sleepy Joe and the Do Nothing Democrats. Very unfair, but it is what it is!!!”

What a big baby. Trump can't keep himself from acting like a big baby, it seems.