Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate. In this poll, he leads Trump 50% to 48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump holding the slightest advantage with 43% to 42%.
Those numbers, though, do not represent statistically significant differences, as the margin of error in the survey is +/- 3.1 percentage points, meaning results could be 3 points higher or lower.
The poll also found that, at this point, no other mainstream Democrat who has been mentioned as a replacement for the president on the ticket does better than Biden.
The results reflect the hyperpolarized political environment in the country and the reality that both of the major parties’ presumptive nominees bring with them significant disadvantages. Majorities of those surveyed continue to say they have a negative opinion of both men, and neither, they say, should be on the ballot at all.
Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240712121307/https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s1-5036518/biden-trump-poll
Let’s compare it to a foot race
Biden is wearing all the latest gear. Has been training for a year, and has an entire support team.
He runs it in a minute
Which is about the same as these five people we pulled off the street who didn’t know they were running 2 seconds ago. They didn’t even stop to stretch, just ran
We have 4 months to the big race.
Why stick with the person who “topped out” is just as good as people who legitimately haven’t even tried?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to pick one and train them up for the next four months?
Like, you get that right? Biden isn’t turning this around. The best he can do is maintain.
That is a decent point, I think there’s also an argument that if/when those candidates do stop to stretch (so to speak) they might suddenly tear an ACL or whatever. Like the undecided voter who’s never heard of Kamala or Gavin or Gretchen or whoever might hate them when they get to know them.
Ultimately, I think we’d get very similar policy out of a Biden term 2 or Harris/Newsome/Whitmer term 1, so I don’t really care who it is so long as they can beat Trump, and I think it’s still hard to say who can best do that (although the fact that the answer to that question isn’t “the incumbent, duh” really underscores what a completely idiotic and deeply frustrating choice Biden was in 2020 for me, and I hope everyone who supported him in that primary understands how badly they fucked all of us).
Right…
And lots of people closer to Biden than either of us will ever be are saying he can’t beat trump.
And the more the public sees him. The less voters want him.
He is historically unpopular, and this was his first press conference in almost a year. There just isn’t a path for Biden to improve, or he’d have taken it by now. It’s not like this election came out of nowhere, the best campaign plan him and his team could come up with. Was to fucking hide him until it was too late to change candidates.
In 2024, this is peak Biden, there’s no where to go but down.