The 2024 US presidential election is less than eight months away, and the polls are showing a tight race between the incumbent President Joe Biden, and his predecessor Donald Trump, who is seeking to reclaim the White House after losing in 2020. The election is expected to be highly polarized and contentious, as both candidates have loyal supporters and fierce critics.
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After the primaries and caucuses, Donald Trump is leading as the Republican candidate with 1,044 delegates, followed by former UN ambassador Nikki Haley with 86 delegates. To get the Republican nomination, Donald Trump needs to get at least 1,215 delegates out of the total 2,428 available. On the other hand, Joe Biden is leading with 1,542 delegates, where he needs 1,968 delegates to get the Democratic nomination out of the total 3,935 available.
On July 15th, the Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the party will formally select a presidential and vice-presidential candidate. Donald Trump has not yet announced his running mate, but some possible choices are Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Ron DeSantis, or his son Donald Trump Jr. On August 19th, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago, Illinois, where the Democrats will formally nominate their candidate as their presidential candidate. Joe Biden has confirmed that he will run with his current vice president, Kamala Harris, as his partner.
Who is ahead?
A recent poll by Rasmussen Reports found that Trump leads Biden by seven points in Arizona, a state that Biden won by 0.3 points in 2020. Another poll by the University of Texas at Tyler found that Biden leads Trump by three points in Texas, a state that Trump won by 5.6 points in 2020.
According to the 270 to Win Polling Average, Biden and Trump are tied at 43% each, with 14% of voters undecided or supporting other candidates. The polling average is based on the most recent polls from each source within the past 30 days, up to a maximum of five. The polls are weighted by sample size, recency, and quality.
The polls also indicate that the electoral map is similar to the 2020 election, with most states leaning towards either party and a few battleground states that could swing the outcome. The 270 to Win Consensus 2024 Electoral Map, which is based on the current polls and the 2020 election margin, shows that Biden has 232 electoral votes, Trump has 232, and 74 are toss-ups. The toss-up states are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Biden struggling to overcome doubts
The New York Times and Siena College conducted a new poll that shows that President Biden is facing doubts from his own party and widespread dissatisfaction over the country’s situation especially due to his health condition, putting him behind Donald J. Trump.
Only one in four voters are happy with the way the country is going. More than double as many voters think that Mr. Biden’s policies have hurt them than those who think they have helped them. Most voters have a poor opinion of the economy. And the proportion of voters who strongly disapprove of Mr. Biden’s work has reached 47 percent, the highest in Times polls during his presidency.
The poll reveals several issues for the president among the Democratic supporters, such as women, Black and Latino voters. Mr. Trump has been more effective in uniting his party, even with a contested primary. Mr. Biden has progressed through the first voting states with minimal opposition. But the poll showed that Democrats are divided over the possibility of Mr. Biden, the 81-year-old chief, leading the party again. About the same numbers of Democratic primary voters said Mr. Biden should and should not be the nominee in 2024 — with more resistance from voters under 45 years old.
By The Numbers
The polls from the New York Times and Siena College also reveal that Biden’s coalition of voters from different races and generations is losing its strength. Biden, who is the oldest president in US history at 81 years old, barely leads Trump by a single percentage point (36% to 35%) among voters under 30 years old, a group that usually leans Democratic.
His lead among Hispanic voters, another key Democratic constituency, is also narrow at 9 points (46% to 37%), compared to his 20-point margin in 2020. Moreover, he only has a 14-point advantage (48% to 34%) in urban areas, where most of the population lives, while Trump has a 28-point edge (54% to 36%) in rural areas, where most of the land is.
The polls also show that Trump is making inroads with black voters, a core Biden demographic, who are now giving him 22 percent of their support in these states. The New York Times reported that this level of black support for a Republican presidential candidate was unseen in modern times.
Too Old to Be Effective
According to the polls, President Biden’s age is a serious challenge for his re-election campaign, as most of his 2020 supporters now doubt his ability to lead the country well.
The survey showed a drastic change in how voters who chose Mr. Biden in the previous election view him. A remarkable 61 percent said he was “just too old” to be a good president.
A large portion was even more concerned: Nineteen percent of those who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, and 13 percent of those who would vote for him in November, said the president’s age of 81 years old made him unfit for the job. The worries about Mr. Biden’s age affected people of different ages, genders, races, and education levels, highlighting the president’s inability to overcome both doubts within his party and Republican accusations of him being senile. Seventy-three percent of all registered voters said he was too old to be effective, and 45 percent said they thought he could not do the job.
