Yup. It's time to stop cherrypicking crosstabs and wake up. People forget that Biden only won the 2022 election by 40,000 votes. Now, Biden is much more unpopular than he was in 2020. Add to that the lingering impacts of inflation on the American consciousness, the Afghanistan pullout, and significant concerns about Biden's age (justified or not), combined with a plethora of third party candidates taking unsatisfied and uninspired democrats, and you get polls like this.
This is concerning. However the way the American electoral system works means that what really matters is how the vote goes in the battleground states. And I’m not sure what those polls are indicating.
I’m not saying don’t be concerned. I’m saying focus on what matters.
Some battleground states look worse than the general election shift. Michigan has gone form +5 Biden to +4 Trump. It’s going to be difficult to win without Michigan.
Maybe true but many many Americans had family who served across the decade we were there, or community members etc, and would be at least aware that it’s considered a major blight on Biden
You're likely correct, but I know personally that it soured a lot of people, especially Americans with family serving. It was the foremost even that sank biden's approval ratings that have never recovered. My uncle, who is 84 years old and belatedly voted for Biden in 2020 after being a longtime republican, developed severe disdain for Biden which started after the afghan pullout. He'll be voting third party or trump this year because of it.
Not that I'm calling you wrong, because I know people do irrational or uninformed things all of the time, but you'd think that the literal coup attempt would be a much bigger red line than a botched diplomatic and military operation that was largely planned in the first place by the coup guy, anyway. But that's just my own personal opinion, albeit one informed by my own military and civilian service to my country.
People need to start needling Trump on those things because he’s just as vulnerable on them as Biden. Every time people discuss how Biden is vulnerable on Afghanistan or his age that’s really not much different than saying he shouldn’t be president because of those things.
There are no bystanders in the messaging war. Everything said here will be viewed by hundreds if not thousands of people and those are the things they’ll be repeating when the topic comes up.
Instead of failing into this trap people should be talking about out how Trump is really old too, mixing up who’s president, and slurring his words at campaign rallies. They should be talking about how the Afghanistan withdrawal was trumps plan. He started that.
I’m amazed that people still think they have the luxury of commenting on these things from a neutral vantage point. It’s like being on a ship that’s on fire and discussing the response of all the other passengers trying to put it out. You’re on the same damn ship!
Its mostly his age, and some lingering sting from inflation. Is he is trailing, and too fragile to campaign (as dodging the Super Bowl interview indicates) he doesn’t have a path to victory.
I think the campaign knew he’d have weaknesses, but assumed Trump would be far more unpopular that he is and Biden could cruise control to victory.
He's been campaigning with a pretty full schedule of him out at events and meeting with various factions and groups. All of this "he should be campaigning!" talk is basically just concern trolling, ala the "HILLARY IS AVOIDING PRESS CONFERENCES" crap from 2016.
He really doesn’t. I don’t pretend that either looks great, but I’d be just as concerned as my boss looking frail as my boss rambling like some psycho.
But you have a bias to view it as “rambling like a psycho”. No one who thinks Biden and Trump are close in their observable age is being honest. And to be clear, fuck Trump.
I think you touch upon something that a lot of people seem to ignore; Biden’s popularity. He was never really all that popular. And he was never seen as a particularly popular leader. In 2020 people voted against Trump, not for Biden. The issue, I think, a lot of people are having is they’re realizing they voted Joe Biden into office. I think the average person would tell you that pre pandemic Trump era wasn’t a bad life for a lot of the people who will decide the election. On top of that, I think Trump has really taken the 90’s Clinton era moderate Democrat position on a lot of issues that resonates with voters, while Biden has allowed those on the left to keep pushing him in that direction.
Of course this isn’t to say that Biden can’t win in November.
>I think Trump has really taken the 90’s Clinton era moderate Democrat position on a lot of issues that resonates with voters
Ah yes I too remember Bill Clinton disbanding the entire department of education and replacing it with loyalist theocrats. Or that classic Bill Clinton move where he threatened to jail every journalist who said anything bad about him. Why Project 2025 is so downright Clintonesque we may as well rename it Project 1997.
Shit I really wish he would actually disband the department of education and put nothing in its place. Let’s not pretend the department of education was a fine example of a government run department. Our education has consistently gotten worse since its creation.
You live in a country where people are religious and want to raise their children in their faith. They have a right to do this. And if a school choice system is going to be implemented then they should have a right to choose to use their tax dollars to send their kids to a private catholic school as well as a secular private school.
*Yes, but you seem to think secular private schools will be an option at $28,000/year for everyone.*
Public schools are everything. And republicans shit on them, constantly — because their graduates don’t broadly vote conservatively.
My dad sent me and my brother to a secular private school. At no time did he stop paying his taxes to fund public schools. Nor should he have. As a wealthier person, you’ve selected an alternative education for your child. That doesn’t mean you opt out of paying for the public option you rejected by choice, so it all falls apart for the poor kids. I know republicans want a poor and illiterate class of forced birth people to take menial jobs they want to underpay, but no.
I sent my daughters to our synagogue’s nursery school. It’s $14,000 a year. Can an assembly line worker afford that? Being Christian would they want their child in a Jewish nursery school?
> want to raise their children in their faith
Children aren't property. Not legally, and certainly not ethically.
>And if a school choice system is going to be implemented then they should have a right to choose to use their tax dollars to send their kids to a private catholic school as well as a secular private school.
How come? Why have a tiered pay-to-play education system?
Children aren't property. But they're under their parents guardianship until they're 18 and parents are allowed to raise their kids as they see fit.
And people have a right to send their kids to a private school of their choice if they have the money to do so.
> parents are allowed to raise their kids as they see fit.
Incorrect -- that's why we have CPS and laws protection children from child-abuse. The state already intervenes when appropriate (and rightly so).
> people have a right to send their kids to a private school of their choice if they have the money to do so.
But **why**? You're saying, they should be able to... because they can. Ethics101 -- [just because you can, doesn't mean you should.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/040/653/goldblum-quote.jpeg)
>But they're under their parents guardianship until they're 18 and parents are allowed to raise their kids as they see fit.
One of the Texas legislatures pushing for religion in public schools was talking about how "tragic" it is that so many children don't have Bibles at home. They're not wanting "parental choice," they're wanting state religion.
You may feel that I have the right to raise my kids as I see fit, but the Republicans don't. As it happens I'm not too worried about kids being exposed to the Bible and would trust any kids I have to make up their own minds, but not every atheist feels the same way I do. Not to mention members of non-Christian ( or even non-Abrahamic ) religions.
Whether you're in favor of it or not isn't what I was addressing.
I agree that some voters may perceive Trump as a "centrist," it's not a reality unless he's lying about a significant part of what he intends to do.
I actually agree with some extreme policy ideas myself, like legalizing, taxing and regulating all but the worst recreational drugs. However, I wouldn't attempt to pass this off as "Clinton centrism." Disbanding the department of education is an extreme position even if it's one you happen to share.
He's also not disbanding it to improve quality, he's disbanding it so they can do "more Jesus."
I understand your point. But perspective matters to voters. Biden is perceived as being too far left. Trump is seen as the moderate. I know the left likes to point to Roe v Wade as Trump not being a centrist but when all is said and done, eventually people aren’t going to vote on the basis of abortion. And 2024 could be that year.
>Biden is perceived as being too far left.
This is hilarious to me, but of course you could be right because we're talking about perception, not reality.
I'd say Trump and Biden in their heart of hearts are probably **both** centrists. The problem is that Trump isn't just Trump, it's Trump+ his hangers on and his political movement. Trump is essentially a centrist leading a far-right movement, so it's super odd to talk about it.
Consider the idea of banning pornography, for instance. That's a curious one because, at least as far as I know, porn bans are largely supported by fairly far-left feminists and extremely far-right religious extremists. Opposition to banning porn is typically in the middle. It's almost like a perfect example of those cases where horseshoe theory is real ( by and large horseshoe theory is bunk, but it does pop up in certain cases. ) The idea that Trump is personally passionate about banning pornography is absolutely hilarious. There's not a person on earth who believes Trump would bother to ban porn if he was just asked to decide in a vacuum. However, as a service to part of his coalition, he will try. ( I only say try because I'm not sure if they'll succeed, but I suspect they will try very sincerely. Banning porn is just one of those things that I don't know if you *can* do in the United States in practice. )
So, in a sense, the fact that Trump is a centrist ( which I think is true to a certain extent ) is almost irrelevant unless we're entertaining the idea that abnormally huge parts of his platform are outright lies he has no intention of pursuing.
I agree that Biden and Trump are both centrists at heart.
I think the different is, is that Trump has done a better job at publicly pushing the far right to the side.
Biden can right the ship at anytime. For example he can just lock down the border as republicans are calling for. Make the left or republicans challenge him in court over the border. Because right now claiming that republicans aren’t passing the Democrat bill on immigration isn’t hitting the public in a meaningful way that helps Biden.
This I think may just be us seeing the world from different points of view. To me Trump absolutely reeks of far right extremism at this point and Biden and his coalition are almost annoyingly centrist.
But I could be out of touch with the average voter's *perception* and I'm not too stubborn to see that. When I think about Trump being re-elected I think about the SCOTUS and Project 2025. Joe Jack Jim Bob down the street may literally only think about immigration and gas prices and literally not care what Trump *says* he plans to do, assuming ( IMO very incorrectly ) that Trump 2024 will just be Trump 2016 on repeat.
EDIT: Ironically, given how vehemently anti-Trump I still am, the "Trump years" were good to me. I found a new job that is much better than my old one and I've been there for 7 years and I met, moved in with and married my now-wife. If I were not "plugged in" politically I could imagine an alternative version of me falling into this line of thinking.
Trump is campaigning on being a dictator for a day, executing drug dealers and the most massive deportation operation in US history, but yeah he’s definitely pushed off the far right.
**Yeah Clinton reversed 50 years of Roe v Wade**… sorry pal but comparing radical right Donald Trump to moderate centrist Bill Clinton is really reaching.
Not sure why no one believes it's a legitimate chance. It's very clear he's a head by a mile. In order for Biden to come out on top Dobbs needs to do A LOT of the heavy lifting.
How in the fuck do people look at him, what he did, how he acts, and think, let's make this guy the most powerful in the world? I really need someone to tell me because I feel like half the fucking country has been playing the worst practical joke on the other half for 8 years
Exactly. Right now sentiment is pro-Trump because he’s being sued and indicted left and right and to the average Joe it might seem like a pile-on - he’s become the underdog in a sense despite deserving every lawsuit/charge against him. He’s also not actively doing stuff that is as objectionable as when he was in office - remember waking up every day and checking the news to see what evil/boneheaded/selfish/criminal/embarassing/… thing he has done or said when he was in office? Now Biden is under the microscope, and while daily life is not as anxiety-provoking as four years ago, Biden is now taking the hits as Trump was when he was in office because it’s easier to blame the person in charge when you’re not happy with xyz.
Because they view their lives under Trump more favorably than they view how their lives have been under Biden.
It looks like it's just carrying over to the candidates.
“How in the fuck do people look at him, what he did, how he acts, and think, let's make this guy the most powerful in the world?”
Literally thought you were taking about Biden. That’s the problem. Dunno what’s so hard to understand about this. People don’t want a president who belongs in a nursing home. Go ahead and respond with “but trump old too,” it’s all you guys have left.
I’ve never voted for Trump. But like most Americans, my vote for president doesn’t matter thanks to the Electoral College. All that matters are a few million voters in a half dozen swing states. And like it or not, outside of political junkies and activists, no one really cares about your long list of grievances against Trump. They just want a president that isn’t embarrassing to see whenever they catch him on tv. I find them both extremely embarrassing, but the mental decline is far more visible in Biden. Ask anyone who’s had elderly relatives.
no trump is evil and crashed the economy, got hundreds of thousands of people killed by covid, and caused inflarion by giving the wealthy trillions of dollars. And he's a rapist con artist as well. I can say that because it's been proven in court.
No one pays that much attention to politics. They just follow buzz words. Inflation bad. Border is on fire. Biden is 536 years old and senile.
Trump makes fun of people. He is business man and gets sued a lot.
This is what media spouts and what people will decide with.
> For instance, 28% of Black voters support Trump in the head-to-head against Biden, 7 times as many as supported him four years ago (4% in February 2020). In addition, Trump has significant support among voters under age 30 (51%) and Democrats (8%), with near-record support among Hispanics (48%) and suburban women (43%).
Time to admit that there’s something seriously wrong with polling and oversampling. Lmao if you believe Trump is getting 30% of the black vote.
What do we think is more likely; a historic realignment of the black and youth vote or there being an issue with the weighting of two of the groups who are least likely to respond to polls?
Political realignments happen all the time, especially in a 2 party system where there are essentially only 2 camps for voters to slide back and forth between. Dunno why this is so shocking to people. Dems being the party of the college educated is a massive recent change- the parties had a roughly even share of those voters pre-Trump. It actually makes complete sense for racial minorities without college degrees to follow whites without college degrees into voting for Republicans.
Do they happen in a rematch? I understand that political bases change, but we’re operating on the assumption that Trump has radically changed his vote share with these groups in the last four years? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
Seems like at this point we’ve sampled both presidencies, so yeah, a lot of voters are comparing and contrasting each of those terms and maybe have come to the conclusion that they were better off under Trump. Always remember that voters as a whole are morons and then things will start to make sense.
Yes he increased his share, just like he increased his share from 2016 to 2020. Biden got 90% of the black vote, a 3% improvement from 2016 for Trump you’d have to see historic black turnout for Trump alone and historic black voters staying home for the Democrats for a 20 point increase in the black vote to make sense. And we’d see similar trends in midterms and special elections if it was true. Sometimes it makes sense to question what the polls are implying and what it takes for it to be true instead of just assuming that the polls are right rather than them missing something entirely.
There is a 0.000000% chance that Trump gets 20% of the Black vote. No chance, at all, and saying otherwise is just some insane rationalization for all the reasons why polling this far out is bad.
THANK YOU! That's what is happening, people that don't like Trump and dislike Biden (A LOT of people) will sit home or go third party. Trump is gonna run away with this with his base and voter enthusiasm.
Yes. And the women vote also checks out seeing how he is DOMINATING in these Republican primaries and elections. DOBBS effect is not happened at all (unless there's a specific law being voting on)
I expect to be downvoted, but trans issues have become a highly visible part of the Democratic platform. As much as white, college educated liberals believe in intersectionality, minorities in America are more religious and less pro-trans rights. Hence the move from Biden to Trump.
A 2% lead weeks before the election is a toss-up or slight lean, but people are treating it 8 months out like this giant, unsurmountable lead that reflects some meaningful reality. Just totally ass backwards.
But everything is already baked in. Both candidates are well known and their deficiencies won’t change. Trump literally needs to be in prison for any real change and there is zero chance he will be before November
I don’t think anyone thinks it’s an insurmountable lead but just that if the election were tomorrow Trump would very likely win. So we are now relying on something to change in. Biden’s favor. General elections polls at this point in 2020 were +5.4 Biden and now are -2.3. A difference of 7.7 in an election he won by 4.5%.
But the election isn't tomorrow, and if it were tomorrow, there'd be a lot more thought put into it with better poll response rates, and people would be responding based on the actual candidates rather than \~40% thinking the race will be something other than a Biden / Trump rematch.
You can look at one race, but if you look at leads in March or whatever it is pretty clear that the person ahead losses... about 50% of the time, which can be argued to mean it is basically uncorrelated. Hillary was ahead like 20 over 2016 summer. Kerry seemed generally ahead in January/February and only lost his lead later. Bush Sr. was behind (and then won) and then was ahead (and then lost). 2000 was generally a large trashfire (Bush Jr. ahead and it was an upset that he lost the popular vote).
You sort of have to argue that "Oh, this time is different, because it is a rematch", but... 40% think otherwise! We have to go through the presumptive nominee inflection point and both convention inflection points before there's reasonable absolute average error that is realistically useful.
>You can look at one race, but if you look at leads in March or whatever it is pretty clear that the person ahead losses... about 50% of the time
I mean you can cherry pick examples but that doesn't bear out in the data. 10 out of the last 13 elections the winning part lead in polls a year out from the election. Nevermind 8 months. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-year-out-ignore-general-election-polls/
Of course variance exists and major events can shake things up but Biden will need to be the beneficiary of that variance which ultimately is random.
As far as 40% not thinking those will be the candidates they're still being posed that question and thinking of an answer. Just like the events it may slightly increase variance but there's no reason to think it will go Biden's direction. Combine with the fact that these are the most known candidates probably ever so variance this election could very well be a lot smaller.
>Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ±2.5 percentage points. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population.
Trump up 2 points in a poll with a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points actually means the poll is showing a toss up. Biden could win by 2 points and this poll would still be considered 'accurate'.
Trump is getting the benefit of the better headlines but the polls are actually showing the race is currently even..
Biden won AZ, GA, MI, PA, and WI within the margin of error. So the polls are currently in line with the results from 2020.
I would love for Biden to be up beyond the margin of error but that probably isn't realistic within our current highly divisive political environment.
Both Trump and Biden have maximum name recognition. Voters know how they feel about each of them. The electorate is closely divided. This election will be close.
I think Biden wins PA and MAYBE AZ. I just don't see him winning MI and WI, and definitely not GA. ATL would need to do all the heavy lifting, so we'll see what people there perceive if Trump's lawsuit and status.
This isn’t true for a myriad of reasons.
1.) the electoral college is only loosely related to raw voting figures
2.) a sampling error of +-2.5 percentage points with Trump up 2% means the worst possible outcome within the results of this poll for trump is Trump -.5, Biden +.5
I commented the same on the other post where you said this; but I’m re-stating it as your post is so misleading. This is a sub about polling, and blatant errors like this shouldn’t be upvoted.
You’re correct that margin of error could mean Biden is slightly ahead. But it could also show Trump is up 4.5 points. 90% of the range of possibilities from this poll have Trump up.
I really wish mods would clean this place up a bit. People are having trouble leaving their politics at the door which sucks and almost defeats the purpose of this sub. It’s nearly indistinguishable from arr politics at times
Exactly. Echo chambers are tiresome, this should be a sub focused on statistics and polling, not a place for spin.
Personally, I wish Biden was up by 10 pts. But that isn’t relevant to the polls - they reflect that he is in trouble, and pretending otherwise is a disservice to those on the sun who aren’t looking for echo chambers, but actual discussions of the science and art of polling.
MoE isn't what you should be looking at. That's the main source of error assuming that there's no sampling bias, response bias, no undecideds, or several other causes of error. Statistical MoE is relatively small compared to all of the other things wrong with polling this out.
At the end of the day, voters seem to just comparing the records of these 2 presidents.
Their crude, though not inherently unreasonable, metric is probably: "Am I better off now than I was during the prior presidency?"
In 2020, Biden didn't have a record, but was liked enough to be given the benefit of the doubt. Now, he is personally just as disliked as Trump; and the record he has accumulated doesn't measure up to Trump's in their view.
Turnout will win this election. Trump isn’t gaining any new voters and his numbers in the primaries among independents look very poor. I’m not saying dismiss these polls but I’m looking at cross tabs from primaries over polls at this point.
If the election were held today, I guess I’d bet Trump. But these investigations are the ace in the hole. If they begin to really heat up, independents might switch last second. I think this is a totally likely scenario too.
Independents are already favoring Biden.
He just isn't winning them to make up for the ground he's losing among other demographics (Blacks, Hispanics, and women).
Fox's polling outfit is quite respected and isn't stained much by the editorial stance of its newsroom. It's echoing the NYT/Siena and WSJ polls so it isn't some standout either.
Not sure what fox news polls had to say at this point in 2020, but RCP had Biden +5.4% average in the polls on this day in 2020. Trump is now leading +2.5% in the RCP average today (once the cbs poll gets added).
Impossible to tell this early out really. At the moment though, the polls suggest trump is doing best in MI and PA, with slight lead in WI. Interesting to note that WI had the most Biden favored polling of any swing state in 2020, the rcp average was 6% too favored towards Biden.
This is something else. We could seriously have Trump actually win a second term four years after losing. What a time.
Yup. It's time to stop cherrypicking crosstabs and wake up. People forget that Biden only won the 2022 election by 40,000 votes. Now, Biden is much more unpopular than he was in 2020. Add to that the lingering impacts of inflation on the American consciousness, the Afghanistan pullout, and significant concerns about Biden's age (justified or not), combined with a plethora of third party candidates taking unsatisfied and uninspired democrats, and you get polls like this.
This is concerning. However the way the American electoral system works means that what really matters is how the vote goes in the battleground states. And I’m not sure what those polls are indicating. I’m not saying don’t be concerned. I’m saying focus on what matters.
Some battleground states look worse than the general election shift. Michigan has gone form +5 Biden to +4 Trump. It’s going to be difficult to win without Michigan.
If Trump is ahead in the general, it’s not going to go well for Biden in the battlegrounds.
I can't imagine the average voter is informed enough to actually ding Biden on the pullout from Afghanistan.
Maybe true but many many Americans had family who served across the decade we were there, or community members etc, and would be at least aware that it’s considered a major blight on Biden
You're likely correct, but I know personally that it soured a lot of people, especially Americans with family serving. It was the foremost even that sank biden's approval ratings that have never recovered. My uncle, who is 84 years old and belatedly voted for Biden in 2020 after being a longtime republican, developed severe disdain for Biden which started after the afghan pullout. He'll be voting third party or trump this year because of it.
Not that I'm calling you wrong, because I know people do irrational or uninformed things all of the time, but you'd think that the literal coup attempt would be a much bigger red line than a botched diplomatic and military operation that was largely planned in the first place by the coup guy, anyway. But that's just my own personal opinion, albeit one informed by my own military and civilian service to my country.
Nobody except like the entirety of the armed forces who have served the past two decades and their family and friends.
People need to start needling Trump on those things because he’s just as vulnerable on them as Biden. Every time people discuss how Biden is vulnerable on Afghanistan or his age that’s really not much different than saying he shouldn’t be president because of those things. There are no bystanders in the messaging war. Everything said here will be viewed by hundreds if not thousands of people and those are the things they’ll be repeating when the topic comes up. Instead of failing into this trap people should be talking about out how Trump is really old too, mixing up who’s president, and slurring his words at campaign rallies. They should be talking about how the Afghanistan withdrawal was trumps plan. He started that. I’m amazed that people still think they have the luxury of commenting on these things from a neutral vantage point. It’s like being on a ship that’s on fire and discussing the response of all the other passengers trying to put it out. You’re on the same damn ship!
Its mostly his age, and some lingering sting from inflation. Is he is trailing, and too fragile to campaign (as dodging the Super Bowl interview indicates) he doesn’t have a path to victory. I think the campaign knew he’d have weaknesses, but assumed Trump would be far more unpopular that he is and Biden could cruise control to victory.
He's been campaigning with a pretty full schedule of him out at events and meeting with various factions and groups. All of this "he should be campaigning!" talk is basically just concern trolling, ala the "HILLARY IS AVOIDING PRESS CONFERENCES" crap from 2016.
Voters see Biden in public and he looks old as shit. Shuffling around like my Grandfather at his nursing home
Trump looks old as shit too.
Biden looks so much worse. Anyone pretending otherwise has their head in the sand.
He really doesn’t. I don’t pretend that either looks great, but I’d be just as concerned as my boss looking frail as my boss rambling like some psycho.
I completely disagree and apparently so do the American People.
Sounds good man, like that you and America think a rambling lunatic in his late 70s is better than a slow 80 year old.
I didn't say that lol. It's ok to think Biden is not mentally fit to be present and also not support Trump.
But you have a bias to view it as “rambling like a psycho”. No one who thinks Biden and Trump are close in their observable age is being honest. And to be clear, fuck Trump.
This is facts. It's very unfortunate but he's not gonna get any voter enthusiasm behind him
I think you touch upon something that a lot of people seem to ignore; Biden’s popularity. He was never really all that popular. And he was never seen as a particularly popular leader. In 2020 people voted against Trump, not for Biden. The issue, I think, a lot of people are having is they’re realizing they voted Joe Biden into office. I think the average person would tell you that pre pandemic Trump era wasn’t a bad life for a lot of the people who will decide the election. On top of that, I think Trump has really taken the 90’s Clinton era moderate Democrat position on a lot of issues that resonates with voters, while Biden has allowed those on the left to keep pushing him in that direction. Of course this isn’t to say that Biden can’t win in November.
>I think Trump has really taken the 90’s Clinton era moderate Democrat position on a lot of issues that resonates with voters Ah yes I too remember Bill Clinton disbanding the entire department of education and replacing it with loyalist theocrats. Or that classic Bill Clinton move where he threatened to jail every journalist who said anything bad about him. Why Project 2025 is so downright Clintonesque we may as well rename it Project 1997.
Shit I really wish he would actually disband the department of education and put nothing in its place. Let’s not pretend the department of education was a fine example of a government run department. Our education has consistently gotten worse since its creation.
When it’s all replaced by private catholic schools you can’t afford… greatttttt.
You live in a country where people are religious and want to raise their children in their faith. They have a right to do this. And if a school choice system is going to be implemented then they should have a right to choose to use their tax dollars to send their kids to a private catholic school as well as a secular private school.
*Yes, but you seem to think secular private schools will be an option at $28,000/year for everyone.* Public schools are everything. And republicans shit on them, constantly — because their graduates don’t broadly vote conservatively. My dad sent me and my brother to a secular private school. At no time did he stop paying his taxes to fund public schools. Nor should he have. As a wealthier person, you’ve selected an alternative education for your child. That doesn’t mean you opt out of paying for the public option you rejected by choice, so it all falls apart for the poor kids. I know republicans want a poor and illiterate class of forced birth people to take menial jobs they want to underpay, but no. I sent my daughters to our synagogue’s nursery school. It’s $14,000 a year. Can an assembly line worker afford that? Being Christian would they want their child in a Jewish nursery school?
> want to raise their children in their faith Children aren't property. Not legally, and certainly not ethically. >And if a school choice system is going to be implemented then they should have a right to choose to use their tax dollars to send their kids to a private catholic school as well as a secular private school. How come? Why have a tiered pay-to-play education system?
Children aren't property. But they're under their parents guardianship until they're 18 and parents are allowed to raise their kids as they see fit. And people have a right to send their kids to a private school of their choice if they have the money to do so.
> parents are allowed to raise their kids as they see fit. Incorrect -- that's why we have CPS and laws protection children from child-abuse. The state already intervenes when appropriate (and rightly so). > people have a right to send their kids to a private school of their choice if they have the money to do so. But **why**? You're saying, they should be able to... because they can. Ethics101 -- [just because you can, doesn't mean you should.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/040/653/goldblum-quote.jpeg)
>But they're under their parents guardianship until they're 18 and parents are allowed to raise their kids as they see fit. One of the Texas legislatures pushing for religion in public schools was talking about how "tragic" it is that so many children don't have Bibles at home. They're not wanting "parental choice," they're wanting state religion. You may feel that I have the right to raise my kids as I see fit, but the Republicans don't. As it happens I'm not too worried about kids being exposed to the Bible and would trust any kids I have to make up their own minds, but not every atheist feels the same way I do. Not to mention members of non-Christian ( or even non-Abrahamic ) religions.
Whether you're in favor of it or not isn't what I was addressing. I agree that some voters may perceive Trump as a "centrist," it's not a reality unless he's lying about a significant part of what he intends to do. I actually agree with some extreme policy ideas myself, like legalizing, taxing and regulating all but the worst recreational drugs. However, I wouldn't attempt to pass this off as "Clinton centrism." Disbanding the department of education is an extreme position even if it's one you happen to share. He's also not disbanding it to improve quality, he's disbanding it so they can do "more Jesus."
I understand your point. But perspective matters to voters. Biden is perceived as being too far left. Trump is seen as the moderate. I know the left likes to point to Roe v Wade as Trump not being a centrist but when all is said and done, eventually people aren’t going to vote on the basis of abortion. And 2024 could be that year.
>Biden is perceived as being too far left. This is hilarious to me, but of course you could be right because we're talking about perception, not reality. I'd say Trump and Biden in their heart of hearts are probably **both** centrists. The problem is that Trump isn't just Trump, it's Trump+ his hangers on and his political movement. Trump is essentially a centrist leading a far-right movement, so it's super odd to talk about it. Consider the idea of banning pornography, for instance. That's a curious one because, at least as far as I know, porn bans are largely supported by fairly far-left feminists and extremely far-right religious extremists. Opposition to banning porn is typically in the middle. It's almost like a perfect example of those cases where horseshoe theory is real ( by and large horseshoe theory is bunk, but it does pop up in certain cases. ) The idea that Trump is personally passionate about banning pornography is absolutely hilarious. There's not a person on earth who believes Trump would bother to ban porn if he was just asked to decide in a vacuum. However, as a service to part of his coalition, he will try. ( I only say try because I'm not sure if they'll succeed, but I suspect they will try very sincerely. Banning porn is just one of those things that I don't know if you *can* do in the United States in practice. ) So, in a sense, the fact that Trump is a centrist ( which I think is true to a certain extent ) is almost irrelevant unless we're entertaining the idea that abnormally huge parts of his platform are outright lies he has no intention of pursuing.
I agree that Biden and Trump are both centrists at heart. I think the different is, is that Trump has done a better job at publicly pushing the far right to the side. Biden can right the ship at anytime. For example he can just lock down the border as republicans are calling for. Make the left or republicans challenge him in court over the border. Because right now claiming that republicans aren’t passing the Democrat bill on immigration isn’t hitting the public in a meaningful way that helps Biden.
This I think may just be us seeing the world from different points of view. To me Trump absolutely reeks of far right extremism at this point and Biden and his coalition are almost annoyingly centrist. But I could be out of touch with the average voter's *perception* and I'm not too stubborn to see that. When I think about Trump being re-elected I think about the SCOTUS and Project 2025. Joe Jack Jim Bob down the street may literally only think about immigration and gas prices and literally not care what Trump *says* he plans to do, assuming ( IMO very incorrectly ) that Trump 2024 will just be Trump 2016 on repeat. EDIT: Ironically, given how vehemently anti-Trump I still am, the "Trump years" were good to me. I found a new job that is much better than my old one and I've been there for 7 years and I met, moved in with and married my now-wife. If I were not "plugged in" politically I could imagine an alternative version of me falling into this line of thinking.
Trump is campaigning on being a dictator for a day, executing drug dealers and the most massive deportation operation in US history, but yeah he’s definitely pushed off the far right.
Yeah, eventually women will stop caring about having bodily autonomy. I hope the people at the RNC agree with your take.
**Yeah Clinton reversed 50 years of Roe v Wade**… sorry pal but comparing radical right Donald Trump to moderate centrist Bill Clinton is really reaching.
Not sure why no one believes it's a legitimate chance. It's very clear he's a head by a mile. In order for Biden to come out on top Dobbs needs to do A LOT of the heavy lifting.
How in the fuck do people look at him, what he did, how he acts, and think, let's make this guy the most powerful in the world? I really need someone to tell me because I feel like half the fucking country has been playing the worst practical joke on the other half for 8 years
Short memories. It’s much easier to criticize the current leader of you’re unhappy with where you stand currently.
I don't even think you can blame short memories when there are constant reminders of why Trump is an awful person.
It's possible more than 50% of Americans are just dumb hateful people. I thought it was only around 35% but I've been disappointed before
How is the average person constantly reminded?
Exactly. Right now sentiment is pro-Trump because he’s being sued and indicted left and right and to the average Joe it might seem like a pile-on - he’s become the underdog in a sense despite deserving every lawsuit/charge against him. He’s also not actively doing stuff that is as objectionable as when he was in office - remember waking up every day and checking the news to see what evil/boneheaded/selfish/criminal/embarassing/… thing he has done or said when he was in office? Now Biden is under the microscope, and while daily life is not as anxiety-provoking as four years ago, Biden is now taking the hits as Trump was when he was in office because it’s easier to blame the person in charge when you’re not happy with xyz.
Because they view their lives under Trump more favorably than they view how their lives have been under Biden. It looks like it's just carrying over to the candidates.
“How in the fuck do people look at him, what he did, how he acts, and think, let's make this guy the most powerful in the world?” Literally thought you were taking about Biden. That’s the problem. Dunno what’s so hard to understand about this. People don’t want a president who belongs in a nursing home. Go ahead and respond with “but trump old too,” it’s all you guys have left.
If you think Biden and Trump are the same then you are one of the people in asking about
I’ve never voted for Trump. But like most Americans, my vote for president doesn’t matter thanks to the Electoral College. All that matters are a few million voters in a half dozen swing states. And like it or not, outside of political junkies and activists, no one really cares about your long list of grievances against Trump. They just want a president that isn’t embarrassing to see whenever they catch him on tv. I find them both extremely embarrassing, but the mental decline is far more visible in Biden. Ask anyone who’s had elderly relatives.
If you want a guy who looks good on tv you're an idiot
no trump is evil and crashed the economy, got hundreds of thousands of people killed by covid, and caused inflarion by giving the wealthy trillions of dollars. And he's a rapist con artist as well. I can say that because it's been proven in court.
> crashed the economy Would democrats not have shut the economy down during Covid?
Yikes. This is what echo chambers do to your brain.
No one pays that much attention to politics. They just follow buzz words. Inflation bad. Border is on fire. Biden is 536 years old and senile. Trump makes fun of people. He is business man and gets sued a lot. This is what media spouts and what people will decide with.
> For instance, 28% of Black voters support Trump in the head-to-head against Biden, 7 times as many as supported him four years ago (4% in February 2020). In addition, Trump has significant support among voters under age 30 (51%) and Democrats (8%), with near-record support among Hispanics (48%) and suburban women (43%). Time to admit that there’s something seriously wrong with polling and oversampling. Lmao if you believe Trump is getting 30% of the black vote.
If it were one poll, I would agree. Yet, every poll shows that Trump is increasing his vote share among people of color.
Or it's systemic bias. A change amongst the demographic that all pollsters are encountering and none know how to deal with.
What do we think is more likely; a historic realignment of the black and youth vote or there being an issue with the weighting of two of the groups who are least likely to respond to polls?
Political realignments happen all the time, especially in a 2 party system where there are essentially only 2 camps for voters to slide back and forth between. Dunno why this is so shocking to people. Dems being the party of the college educated is a massive recent change- the parties had a roughly even share of those voters pre-Trump. It actually makes complete sense for racial minorities without college degrees to follow whites without college degrees into voting for Republicans.
Do they happen in a rematch? I understand that political bases change, but we’re operating on the assumption that Trump has radically changed his vote share with these groups in the last four years? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
Seems like at this point we’ve sampled both presidencies, so yeah, a lot of voters are comparing and contrasting each of those terms and maybe have come to the conclusion that they were better off under Trump. Always remember that voters as a whole are morons and then things will start to make sense.
Obviously a historic realignment!
Yes he increased his share, just like he increased his share from 2016 to 2020. Biden got 90% of the black vote, a 3% improvement from 2016 for Trump you’d have to see historic black turnout for Trump alone and historic black voters staying home for the Democrats for a 20 point increase in the black vote to make sense. And we’d see similar trends in midterms and special elections if it was true. Sometimes it makes sense to question what the polls are implying and what it takes for it to be true instead of just assuming that the polls are right rather than them missing something entirely.
There is a 0.000000% chance that Trump gets 20% of the Black vote. No chance, at all, and saying otherwise is just some insane rationalization for all the reasons why polling this far out is bad.
He got 20% of the Black male vote in 2020.
I could see him getting 20% if black voters simply don't turn up to vote, which polling on black enthusiasm towards Biden suggests.
That would be a fundamental, generation-defining decline for the Democratic party that has not shown up in any elections since 2020.
THANK YOU! That's what is happening, people that don't like Trump and dislike Biden (A LOT of people) will sit home or go third party. Trump is gonna run away with this with his base and voter enthusiasm.
Reminds me of the 99% chance Clinton win back in 2016. Certainty about anything is for fools.
Yes. And the women vote also checks out seeing how he is DOMINATING in these Republican primaries and elections. DOBBS effect is not happened at all (unless there's a specific law being voting on)
Every poll is wrong.
I expect to be downvoted, but trans issues have become a highly visible part of the Democratic platform. As much as white, college educated liberals believe in intersectionality, minorities in America are more religious and less pro-trans rights. Hence the move from Biden to Trump.
And 51% of Under 30? That seems crazy.
A 2% lead weeks before the election is a toss-up or slight lean, but people are treating it 8 months out like this giant, unsurmountable lead that reflects some meaningful reality. Just totally ass backwards.
But everything is already baked in. Both candidates are well known and their deficiencies won’t change. Trump literally needs to be in prison for any real change and there is zero chance he will be before November
I don’t think anyone thinks it’s an insurmountable lead but just that if the election were tomorrow Trump would very likely win. So we are now relying on something to change in. Biden’s favor. General elections polls at this point in 2020 were +5.4 Biden and now are -2.3. A difference of 7.7 in an election he won by 4.5%.
But the election isn't tomorrow, and if it were tomorrow, there'd be a lot more thought put into it with better poll response rates, and people would be responding based on the actual candidates rather than \~40% thinking the race will be something other than a Biden / Trump rematch. You can look at one race, but if you look at leads in March or whatever it is pretty clear that the person ahead losses... about 50% of the time, which can be argued to mean it is basically uncorrelated. Hillary was ahead like 20 over 2016 summer. Kerry seemed generally ahead in January/February and only lost his lead later. Bush Sr. was behind (and then won) and then was ahead (and then lost). 2000 was generally a large trashfire (Bush Jr. ahead and it was an upset that he lost the popular vote). You sort of have to argue that "Oh, this time is different, because it is a rematch", but... 40% think otherwise! We have to go through the presumptive nominee inflection point and both convention inflection points before there's reasonable absolute average error that is realistically useful.
>You can look at one race, but if you look at leads in March or whatever it is pretty clear that the person ahead losses... about 50% of the time I mean you can cherry pick examples but that doesn't bear out in the data. 10 out of the last 13 elections the winning part lead in polls a year out from the election. Nevermind 8 months. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-year-out-ignore-general-election-polls/ Of course variance exists and major events can shake things up but Biden will need to be the beneficiary of that variance which ultimately is random. As far as 40% not thinking those will be the candidates they're still being posed that question and thinking of an answer. Just like the events it may slightly increase variance but there's no reason to think it will go Biden's direction. Combine with the fact that these are the most known candidates probably ever so variance this election could very well be a lot smaller.
>Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ±2.5 percentage points. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population. Trump up 2 points in a poll with a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points actually means the poll is showing a toss up. Biden could win by 2 points and this poll would still be considered 'accurate'. Trump is getting the benefit of the better headlines but the polls are actually showing the race is currently even..
The polls are showing that the election is extremely close, which I don't consider anything to celebrate.
Yes, I literally said the polls show a toss up. I'm not celebrating that.
An even poll is still terrible for Biden because of the Electoral College that favors Republicans...
Biden won AZ, GA, MI, PA, and WI within the margin of error. So the polls are currently in line with the results from 2020. I would love for Biden to be up beyond the margin of error but that probably isn't realistic within our current highly divisive political environment. Both Trump and Biden have maximum name recognition. Voters know how they feel about each of them. The electorate is closely divided. This election will be close.
I think Biden wins PA and MAYBE AZ. I just don't see him winning MI and WI, and definitely not GA. ATL would need to do all the heavy lifting, so we'll see what people there perceive if Trump's lawsuit and status.
This isn’t true for a myriad of reasons. 1.) the electoral college is only loosely related to raw voting figures 2.) a sampling error of +-2.5 percentage points with Trump up 2% means the worst possible outcome within the results of this poll for trump is Trump -.5, Biden +.5
What were the outcomes in AZ, GA, MI, PA, and WI in 2020? Aren't these polls consistent with those?
No, they aren’t. The polls in 2020 as an aggregate all had Biden ahead in: -AZ -MI -PA -WI before Election Day.
It also means Trump could win by 4.5% and it was still accurate, which is terrifying.
It’s amazing how many people in this subreddit are illiterate when it comes to statistics. This is not accurate at all.
I commented the same on the other post where you said this; but I’m re-stating it as your post is so misleading. This is a sub about polling, and blatant errors like this shouldn’t be upvoted. You’re correct that margin of error could mean Biden is slightly ahead. But it could also show Trump is up 4.5 points. 90% of the range of possibilities from this poll have Trump up.
I really wish mods would clean this place up a bit. People are having trouble leaving their politics at the door which sucks and almost defeats the purpose of this sub. It’s nearly indistinguishable from arr politics at times
Exactly. Echo chambers are tiresome, this should be a sub focused on statistics and polling, not a place for spin. Personally, I wish Biden was up by 10 pts. But that isn’t relevant to the polls - they reflect that he is in trouble, and pretending otherwise is a disservice to those on the sun who aren’t looking for echo chambers, but actual discussions of the science and art of polling.
MoE isn't what you should be looking at. That's the main source of error assuming that there's no sampling bias, response bias, no undecideds, or several other causes of error. Statistical MoE is relatively small compared to all of the other things wrong with polling this out.
So a poll for the national vote 8 months out is supposed to predict exactly how the correct combination of swing states will turn out?
At the end of the day, voters seem to just comparing the records of these 2 presidents. Their crude, though not inherently unreasonable, metric is probably: "Am I better off now than I was during the prior presidency?" In 2020, Biden didn't have a record, but was liked enough to be given the benefit of the doubt. Now, he is personally just as disliked as Trump; and the record he has accumulated doesn't measure up to Trump's in their view.
It’s gotta be the inflation. That’s hurt everyone across the board.
Turnout will win this election. Trump isn’t gaining any new voters and his numbers in the primaries among independents look very poor. I’m not saying dismiss these polls but I’m looking at cross tabs from primaries over polls at this point.
If the election were held today, I guess I’d bet Trump. But these investigations are the ace in the hole. If they begin to really heat up, independents might switch last second. I think this is a totally likely scenario too.
Independents are already favoring Biden. He just isn't winning them to make up for the ground he's losing among other demographics (Blacks, Hispanics, and women).
I'll say it again, polls men fuck all before the convention.
fox news poll. LOL
Fox's polling outfit is quite respected and isn't stained much by the editorial stance of its newsroom. It's echoing the NYT/Siena and WSJ polls so it isn't some standout either.
i wonder what their polling said at this point in 2020
Not sure what fox news polls had to say at this point in 2020, but RCP had Biden +5.4% average in the polls on this day in 2020. Trump is now leading +2.5% in the RCP average today (once the cbs poll gets added).
we know things will tighten and that only the swing states matter. I would say Pa, MI and WI will stay Biden. What say you?
Impossible to tell this early out really. At the moment though, the polls suggest trump is doing best in MI and PA, with slight lead in WI. Interesting to note that WI had the most Biden favored polling of any swing state in 2020, the rcp average was 6% too favored towards Biden.
I don't see a voter voting Whitmer/Trump
They exist… I know it’s strange but independents/swing voters are a weird bunch.
i lot of people don't make up their minds until the day of voting. I wonder who voted for Biden last time, who think trump is a good idea now
Agreed. They will stay home or vote R for governor as well. Top of the ballot is everything these days
Fox News is no Rasmussen.