We are getting closer and closer to the 2024 US Presidential election, and Donald Trump still maintains a lead over incumbent President Joe Biden nationally in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate (currently by 1.2 points head-to-head and by 2.7 points in the 5-way race). This has been the case for almost eight months now. This is hardly anything expected, especially given the fact that Donald Trump has been underpolled in both presidential elections he ran as a Republican so far.
However, as we all know, it is not the national popular vote that decides the next POTUS—but rather, it is the electoral vote, based on the elections in the respective states.
Donald Trump is doing very well in polls in the swing states as well.
The New York Times, partnering with another newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the polling firm of Siena College, released a batch of polls from six swing states. Right off the bat, it is interesting to note that they are all states that President Biden won in the 2020 election. This means that the news media and pollsters give little chance of Biden flipping any state Trump won in the last election, and only measuring if Donald Trump can flip certain states. North Carolina was the only state won by Trump in 2020 that has been typically included among the contested states of 2024. However, this time, The New York Times did not even include it in its polled contests.
Of the six swing states surveyed, namely Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, President Trump has a lead in five. The only exception is Michigan,
where President Biden leads by a single point head-to-head. That lead expands to three points when third-party candidates are included.
In Nevada, however, President Trump has an advantage in the double digits (!), leading by 13 points head-to-head and 14 points multi-way. While Nevada only has six electoral votes, it would be a major shift in a moderately left-leaning state that Biden won by 2.39 points in 2020. Nevada also has a sizable Hispanic population, so this may be a sign of President Trump improving with that key demographic as well.
Donald Trump also has a narrow, one-point lead in Wisconsin, a crucial swing state in the Midwest with 10 electoral votes. Donald Trump won it in 2016 by 0.7 points, then Joe Biden flipped it back by winning it by 0.6 points in 2020. To demonstrate the massive gains Donald Trump made in the region for the Republicans, Barack Obama won the state by seven points in 2012 and by 14 (!) points in 2008.
President Trump performed the worst in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden’s birth state, in the 2024 primary election. It was the only swing state in the 2024 primary schedule where Democrat turnout outnumbered that of the Republicans, and President Trump’s vote total was significantly behind President Biden’s as well. Yet in this New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer poll, President Trump is leading President Biden by a substantial, four-point margin, both in the two-way and the five-way race measured. Republicans also have very favourable voter registration data working in their favour in the Keystone State.
Pollsters, analysts, and journalists seem to agree that Georgia is very likely to flip back to President Trump’s column in November. It’s a hefty prize with 16 electoral votes. This poll falls in line with that, showing a massive, nine-point lead for President Trump over the incumbent.
What is even better news for Republicans is that when all reputable published polls are taken into account in the RealClearPolitics aggregate, President Trump leads President Biden in all seven key swing states (with North Carolina included).
Based on polling, which has not been generous with President Trump in 2016 or 2020, he is in a very good position to take back the White House,
and become the second President in US history to serve non-consecutive terms after Grover Cleveland in 1892.
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