The fallout from President Biden’s disastrous debate performance continues to roll in. Democrats are spooked, the Trump reelection team members are walking around wearing wide grins, and former President Trump himself is just standing by and letting the Biden campaign self-destruct.
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Now another series of post-debate polls are tossing another bag of flammable waste on the Biden campaign dumpster fire.
Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in 11 of 12 national surveys taken after their consequential June 27 debate, according to Real Clear Politics’ poll tracker—though surveys are split on whether potential Biden replacements would outperform the president against Trump.
Some specifics:
- Trump leads Biden by 3.3 points in Real Clear Politics’ poll tracker, a 1.8-point swing in Trump’s favor since the debate, and is up by 1.6 points in FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker .
- Trump is up by three points over Biden in the latest poll by Emerson College, taken July 7-8, and leads by two in Morning Consult’s weekly survey.
- Trump leads Biden by six points in a New York Times/Siena College survey conducted Friday to Tuesday, a three-point swing in Trump’s favor since a poll a week earlier, and Trump’s widest lead in any poll by the groups since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.
- A Wall Street Journal survey conducted after the debate also found Biden trails Trump by six points, Trump’s widest lead over Biden in Journal surveys dating to 2021 in a two-way matchup, and a four-point increase in Trump’s lead since February.
- A CBS/YouGov post-debate poll taken in the seven crucial battleground states likely to determine the winner of the election found Trump leads Biden by three points, after trailing him by one point last month.
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That’s unfortunate for the Biden campaign, but those polls appear to be national surveys of the voters, which are interesting, but that’s not how we elect presidents.
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There is, after all, despite the protestations of election analysts, no such thing as the “National Popular Vote.” I tell you three times – there is no such thing. It’s a statistical curiosity and nothing more. Presidential elections are a series of 51 individual elections, the states and the District of Columbia, and so it is those states we must examine to get an idea of what’s going on.
One of those key states is Wisconsin, where Trump lost in 2020 – but is polling ahead there today, increasing his lead.
Joe Biden is down 6 percentage points against Donald Trump in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, with older voters tilting toward the Republican, according to an AARP post-debate poll released Tuesday.
As Democrats deal with infighting over the president’s age and fitness to serve after his disastrous debate performance less than two weeks ago, the poll shows Trump leading Biden in a full ballot test, 44 percent to 38 percent.
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Wisconsin, it should be noted, is essential to Biden’s reelection but probably not to Trump’s. Everyone on Biden’s reelection team should be very worried about this.
Once again, it’s wise not to place too much stock in individual polls. Averages and trends are what matter, and it’s a little too soon post-debate to get a really good handle on how that event and all of Joe Biden’s flailing about since has affected the race. In another week or so, it will be time to take another good hard look at the post-debate trends – so stay tuned!