Joe Biden is facing growing calls to drop out of the 2024 election race after a poll showed the president is losing to Donald Trump in key swing states. The poll, published by Siena College on November 5, showed voters are backing Trump, Biden’s likeliest Republican rival, by margins of four to 10 percentage points in five of six important election battleground states, one year before the 2024 election. The poll was conducted among 3,662 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from October 22 to November 3, 2023. The margin of sampling error for each state is between 4.4 and 4.8 percentage points.
Quick Read
- Polling Data: A Siena College poll indicates that President Joe Biden is trailing Donald Trump in key swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania) by margins of 4-10 percentage points.
- Electoral Impact: If the polling data holds, projections suggest Trump could win over 300 Electoral College votes, beyond the 270 required to win the presidency.
- Voter Preferences: The poll reveals that voters trust Trump over Biden on key issues like the economy, immigration, national security, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
- Democratic Concerns: Political strategist David Axelrod expresses concern over the poll results and suggests that there is a risk for Democrats whether Biden stays in the race or not.
- Republican Views: Bill Kristol, a former Republican official, suggests Biden should not seek reelection and pass the torch to a younger generation.
- Opinions from Democrats: Andrew Yang, a former Democratic presidential candidate, posits that Biden not running could secure his legacy as a statesman who defeated Trump.
- Impact of Potential Trump Conviction: Additional poll findings indicate that Trump’s support could decrease by about 6% in some swing states if he were to be convicted of criminal charges.
- White House Response: Biden’s spokesperson, Kevin Munoz, downplays the poll’s significance, noting that early predictions can change and emphasizing the campaign’s focus on mobilizing voters and contrasting their agenda with that of Republicans.
The Associated Press has the story:
Joe Biden faces growing calls to drop out of the Presidential race
Newslooks- Washington (AP)
Joe Biden is facing growing calls to drop out of the 2024 election race after a poll showed the president is losing to Donald Trump in key swing states.
The poll, published by Siena College on November 5, showed voters are backing Trump, Biden’s likeliest Republican rival, by margins of four to 10 percentage points in five of six important election battleground states, one year before the 2024 election. The poll was conducted among 3,662 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from October 22 to November 3, 2023. The margin of sampling error for each state is between 4.4 and 4.8 percentage points.
The key states Biden is struggling in are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Biden is ahead in Wisconsin, the sixth battleground state, by two percentage points. The poll showed that by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin, voters trusted Trump over Biden on the economy. Voters preferred Trump on immigration by 12 points, on national security by 12 points, and on the Israel-Palestine conflict by 11 points.
It found that, if the results in the poll were the same by the time of the election next November, Trump would win more than 300 Electoral College votes, surpassing the 270 needed to become president.
Additional findings released on Monday, however, showed that if Trump were to be convicted of criminal charges against him, some of his support in some swing states would erode by about 6 percent.
David Axelrod, a political strategist who worked on Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns and served as a senior adviser in his administration, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the polling would spark “legitimate concern” among Democrats.
Appearing to question whether Biden should run for reelection at all, Axelrod wrote in a series of posts that, while “there also is risk associated with changing course now, as there is little time left for a primary campaign… there is a lot of leadership talent in the Democratic Party, poised to emerge.
“The stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” he added, before posting: “Only Joe Biden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
Meanwhile, Bill Kristol, director of the Defending Democracy Together advocacy organization and a former Republican official, said Biden should pass the torch to the next generation.
Kristol posted: “It’s time. President Biden has served our country well. I’m confident he’ll do so for the next year. But it’s time for an act of personal sacrifice and public spirit. It’s time to pass the torch to the next generation. It’s time for Biden to announce he won’t run in 2024.”
Andrew Yang, who lost to Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, posted: “If Joe Biden were to step aside, he would go down in history as an accomplished statesman who beat Trump and achieved a great deal. If he decides to run again it may go down as one of the great overreaches of all time that delivers us to a disastrous Trump second term.”
In a statement issued to multiple press outlets, Biden’s spokesperson, Kevin Munoz, played down concerns about the polling, saying: “Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight-point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later.”
Munoz added that Biden’s campaign “is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our diverse, winning coalition of voters one year out on the choice between our winning, popular agenda and MAGA (Make America great again) Republicans‘ unpopular extremism. We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”
