Strong new 2024 numbers for President Biden
For far too long, polls have been acting as some sort of astrology when it comes to politics. Although 2016 showed national polls with Hillary Clinton typically ahead of Donald Trump (sometimes even by wide margins), she ultimately won by a margin not big enough to win the Electoral College. Four years later, even though polls predicted a sizable victory for Joe Biden and a Senate flip, the error margin was actually worse for the polls than it was in 2016, with Democrats actually losing House seats. Things came to a head in 2022, when media pundits were calling for a red wave on par with the Republican landslides of 1994, 2010 and 2014, but in the end, Republicans largely only got their majority (now down to one seat) because of the Democratic House majority’s 2020 losses – and we gained an extra seat in the Senate.
For much of the 2024 race, we’ve had a lot of noise about President Biden’s polling, despite polling being predictive of much of anything at this point in the race. (A March 1992 poll showed then-President Bush ahead by 19 points – which wasn’t the case by November.) In recent months, the polls have been moving in President Biden’s favor, as people are becoming aware that November’s race will most likely be a rematch between him and Donald Trump. Recently, however, the known right-wing publication Wall Street Journal dropped a rather questionable poll showing Trump ahead in six swing states – particularly when considering that it was funded by Trump’s longtime media ally Rupert Murdoch and conducted by his own pollster, and just two years ago, much of the “red wave” narrative was fueled by Republican internal polls that showed their candidates winning by wide margins.
The media has tried to use this poll to push the horserace narrative when the real story here should be Republicans paying for polls that show the numbers they want – with their long unpopular positions becoming wildly popular overnight. At Palmer Report, however, our take is much clearer: Ignore all the polling. You can argue the averages, like the fact that 14 polls taken over the last month show clear Biden and Democratic gains, even with Republican-leaning polls, or you can disregard all of it and look at how people have been voting for the last two years – consistently supporting Democrats in special and legislative elections. It’s going to be awhile before Nov 5 rolls around. The best thing you can do between now and then is turn off cable news and put in the work.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making