by Sean Trende
It seems only appropriate to start out with what is probably the biggest question out there: What is going on in the presidential election? Can former President Donald Trump, who famously faces 91 felony counts, really become only the second U.S. president to serve non-consecutive terms?
The answer is clearly “yes.” While it is far too early to draw firm conclusions about the likely trajectory of the next presidential campaign, the only serious stance an analyst can take right now is that Trump is in a (perhaps surprisingly) strong position to win.
I’ve laid out the case in detail in a recent article on RealClearPolitics, which you can read here. For our purposes today, I’d like to focus on a recent Wall Street Journal poll that came out after that analysis was written.
The poll does nothing to change the conclusion that Trump is very well positioned to win this election. In a head-to-head matchup, Trump leads Biden 47% to 43% nationally, which is consistent with other polls as seen in the RCP Average.
If we include third-party candidates, Trump’s lead widens to six points. Whether these candidates can get on the ballot in various states is very much an open question, but at the same time, the conventional wisdom among election analysts had been that the third-party candidates would probably draw from Trump.
But since it’s comparable to other poll questions in the RCP Average, what makes this worthy of an entire column, you might ask? Well, it isn’t so much the head-to-head questions as the other questions that should concern Democrats. When asked which party voters preferred to control Congress, Republicans lead by five points. This lead is the second-largest in the past two years, and three points larger than it was in October 2022, shortly before Republicans won the popular vote by three points.
Other responses are just as bracing for Democrats. Donald Trump’s favorable rating is not good – 41% of respondents have a favorable rating of him. But this compares to 36% for Biden, and 33% for Vice President Kamala Harris. The Republican Party has a 41% approval rating, but that compares to 38% for Democrats. Only 37% of respondents approve of the job Biden is doing, versus 47% who, in retrospect, approve of the job Trump did as president.
Biden’s handling of specific issues is rated poorly as well. He’s upside down when it comes to handling the economy (36% approve, 60% disapprove), inflation (30%-66%), Social Security and Medicare (42%-45%), securing the border (27%-64%), the war in Ukraine (45%-49%), and the conflict in Israel (37%-52%). When asked if a president’s policies helped or hurt them, 49% said Trump’s policies helped, while just 23% said that Biden’s policies have helped.
The worst news for Democrats, however, comes when respondents are asked who they view as best able to address these issues. Trump leads Biden on rebuilding the economy (52%-35%), getting inflation under control (51%-30%), reducing crime (47%-30%), securing the border (54%-24%), the Ukraine war (47%-37%), and the conflict in Israel (44%-32%). Biden leads on the question of abortion rights (44%-33%), is tied on prescription drug costs (38%-38%), and leads by just six on the traditionally Democratic issue of protecting Social Security and Medicare (44%-38%) and by three on the traditionally Democratic issue of handling healthcare (40%-37%).
Let’s be clear: It is early. Trump will likely face four criminal trials between now and the election. Yet even on questions like protecting democracy, Biden leads by just a point; it’s unclear that he’ll seize an advantage by harping on January 6. The point isn’t that Trump will win. It’s that Biden’s situation really is grim. He can turn things around, but the point is that he needs things to turn around. Staying the course means that he loses, perhaps badly.
– Sean Trende
