Approval ratings can go just so far in assessing a candidate's chance of winning. The approval ratings of both Biden and Trump are in the toilet. So it comes down to which of the two would you vote for in 2024. Most polls, and the odds-makers, have Biden leading Trump but very little polling has been done at a state level. It comes down to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan. Trump has to win 3 of those 5 in order to win. And right now polls have many voters in the "Undecided" category. That is a danger sign when making predictions. It's what led to many predictors being incorrect in 2016.
Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX
Please take a look at the link SpeedRacer. It should include all significant polls.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...383.html#polls
Biden is not leading Trump in most polls. They're neck and neck. The few times I've looked at this real clear politics web page in recent months, Trump's been slightly ahead for the headline average of recent polls.
Again though, I don't think he'll win assuming he makes it to the general election.. As you know, historically Republicans overperformed at the ballot box, compared to the pre-election polls. I believe that's because a higher % of Republicans actually go to the effort to vote. That didn't happen in 2022 though. Democrats and many independents were fired up to go out and vote, because of Trump's refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. So they overperformed versus the polls. I think you'll see a repeat in 2024, again assuming Trump's the candidate.
Good point about the states. I do think that 2016 was a fluke, where Hillary won the popular vote by a 2.1% margin but lost the electoral college. That hasn't happened, by that kind of a margin, since Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. And the 1876 election was a lot more complicated. Hayes won as part of a grand bargain where federal troops left the south. William Henry Harrison and George Bush, the two other presidents who won the electoral college but lost the popular vote, got only 0.8% and 0.5% fewer votes than their opponents, respectively.
Trump won in 2016 because he campaigned like hell the last few days in battleground states. I think it was a fluke. It boggles the mind to think that Trump should have won the electoral college in 2020, having lost the popular vote by a 4.5% margin, if only the Democrats hadn't cheated him out of a few thousand votes.
Apologies for rambling.