Despite a summer of criminal indictments, people remain lukewarm on the present administration, and polls show that former President Donald Trump is topping President Joe Biden in a number of battleground state polls and national surveys.
Multiple recent polls show that Trump is ahead of Biden by between 1 and 9 points in crucial swing states, and that the former president has a countrywide advantage of between 1 and 10 points, as The Daily Caller reported.
It is still too early in the election season to be predictive, but polling experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the surveys appear to be leaning in Trump's favor.
“[Trump] can absolutely win a general election, that has always been true, and his odds get better every day Joe Biden is president,” Nathan Klein, pollster for OnMessage Inc., told the DCNF.
“The positive movement for Trump we’ve been seeing in the presidential race seems real. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Trump has an outright advantage yet, as many of the swing state polling leads are within the margin of error.
"But Trump certainly is experiencing a bump, helped by some political environment factors and the current perception of the incumbent President. Nearly 70% of Americans feel like our country is on the wrong track, and Biden’s approval rating sits around just 40%.”
According to a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos in mid-September, Trump leads Biden 41% to 35% in the states with the closest 2020 margins of victory: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
According to a Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday, Trump leads Biden by two points in Pennsylvania, a crucial state for deciding the 2020 election. The former president also defeated Biden among independent voters, 48% to 39%.
Trump leads Biden in Georgia, 47% to 38%, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey released on September 15. In North Carolina, the former president is also leading Biden by four points, an increase of nearly three points from when Trump won the state in 2020.
“It’s important to remember that Trump only lost Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin by about 40,000 votes combined. So, the assumption that Biden would cruise to re-election if Trump becomes the nominee was flawed from the start,” said Klein.
“That aside, Biden’s numbers have been dropping recently across the board. Crime, immigration, and his rampant mismanagement of crisis after crisis have all combined to sour his standing with Americans, which has begun to show in his polling numbers. Today, around 60% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration, the highest we’ve seen throughout his presidency.”
In a national head-to-head matchup, Trump would defeat Biden by a margin of 47% to 43%, according to a late September McLaughlin & Associates survey. However, the former president has a greater advantage when third-party candidates are included.
“Trump is running to win the presidency and we have to beat Joe Biden. And our opponents are running a campaign in the primary trying to say we cannot beat Joe Biden, and that’s been proven false,” John McLaughlin, CEO and partner of McLaughlin & Associates, which works closely with the Trump campaign, told the DCNF.
“These are not just our polls, but these are lots of media polls, and some of them are not as favorable to Republicans when they don’t really reflect the actual voter turnout. But still, we’re doing well in those polls.”
