Archives for August 29, 2023 at 9:33 am EDT

Dan Pfeiffer: “The primary reason for the statistical tie in the race is that Trump is holding onto more of his 2020 vote than Biden. In the NYT poll, 91% of Trump’s 2020 voters are supporting him again while only 87% percent of Biden’s voters plan to vote for him in 2024. Among Biden’s 2020 voters, 2% plan to vote for Trump, 4% claim they won’t if the race is between Biden and Trump, and 5% intend to vote for a candidate other than Biden or Trump. Trump loses 2% to Biden, 3% to another candidate, and 2% say they won’t vote.”

“Relying on self-reported voter history can be a little noisy, but Biden’s approval rating demonstrates that he has some work to do with his own coalition. Only 77% percent of Democrats in the poll have a favorable opinion of Biden, compared to 80% of Republicans for Trump.”

“This may seem counterintuitive, but I find these numbers encouraging. Convincing people who already voted for Biden to vote for him again instead of sitting out the election or throwing their vote away on a third party candidate isn’t easy, but it is doable.”

Also interesting: “President Biden is in better shape politically than President Obama was at this juncture.”

A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in Georgia finds Donald Trump led the GOP field of presidential contenders with 57%, followed by Ron DeSantis a distant second at 15%.

Every other contender was mired in single digits, while 14% of the respondents were undecided.

An internal poll conducted for the Trump campaign finds Donald Trump leading the GOP primary race with 58%, followed by Ron DeSantis at 13%, Nikki Haley at 7% and Vivek Ramaswamy at 4%.

“Polls conducted at the behest of presidential campaigns are typically taken with a grain of salt compared to polls conducted independently, though it’s hardly alone in finding Trump with a massive lead.”

“President Biden’s re-election team has officially launched its campaign headquarters in downtown Wilmington, Del., and the first set of aides moved there this past month,” Axios reports.

Nate Cohn: “If the trial goes as scheduled and lasts ‘no longer’ than four to six weeks, as the government said in a filing, around two-thirds of the delegates to the Republican convention will be awarded during the trial of the party’s front-runner but, in all likelihood, before a verdict.”

“A March trial could easily become the center of gravity of the primary season — the fact that structures the opportunities available to Mr. Trump and his rivals. It could even start to affect the calculations of the candidates today.”