The New York Times/Sienna College poll shows Biden trailing Trump in five of six major swing states. In Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, Trump has opened up substantial leads among likely voters that only grows when you include third-party candidates like RFL Jr. In Georgia, where Biden won by about 12,000 votes in 2020, Biden trails Trump by nine points. In Nevada, where no Republican has won since George Bush in 2004, Donald Trump is up by 13 points. Perhaps the most damning piece of data was that only 13% of Biden supporters believe that Biden can implement substantive change in a second term.
As much as you may distrust modern polling, it’s important to understand that Democrats do not. The New York Times/Sienna College poll is the only poll that has correctly called the last three elections. When everyone else projected a GOP wave in 2022, this poll rightly projected a muted Republican win at best.
Democrats are so alarmed that Fareed Zakaria, Biden’s favorite CNN personality, opened his show with an extended monologue highlighting voters’ disdain for Biden over the economy and immigration. A separate CNN analyst broke out the whiteboard to depict how Trump’s coalition is expanding by drawing in disgruntled Black and Hispanic voters who have lost faith in Biden’s ability to manage.
This race is not over and Biden’s could easily get reelected through the advantages that incumbency brings. But if Donald Trump is the existential threat to democracy that Democrats claim he is, can they really take a chance on keeping Biden as the nominee?
