Bloomberg and Morning Consult released a new series of swing-state polls this morning, and Joe Biden’s position in them all — in January 2024 — is utterly catastrophic. Trump leads Biden in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada (the latter by a shocking 48–40; while Nevada elections guru Jon Ralston doubts the size of that lead, he agrees that Trump has unusual strength in one of the states economically hardest hit by Covid).
But since polling sometimes feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure story, here comes Quinnipiac today as well, telling a very different tale: In its national poll of registered voters, Biden leads Trump 50–44 but loses to Haley 47–42. Even more eye-catching, the race becomes far closer once Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is added as an option, as he siphons 14 percent of the vote to make it a 39–37 Biden–Trump scrum.
It is too early to take RFK Jr.’s numbers seriously — he is an unknown quantity to most voters beyond his famous name, and the more people hear of his crazier stances (or hear his voice, for that matter) the less popular he will get. He could nevertheless have a decisive effect in key states depending on his campaign’s ballot-access game. (You may remember the 2000 election for hanging chads and Bush v. Gore; I prefer to remember the 2000 election for George W. Bush coming within 7,000 votes of winning Oregon because a bunch of hippies hilariously gave 5 percent of the state’s vote to Ralph Nader.)
Perhaps these two polls can be reconciled if you argue that they reflect the same electoral college vs. popular vote divide that we already saw in 2000 and 2016, only more extreme than ever. Perhaps one or both are inaccurate. But it seems, either way, that 2024 looks likely to be fought on the same geographic battleground as 2016 and 2020, even if for very different political and economic stakes than last time.