Let’s set the scene. In The latest NBC News poll54% of the respondents said that they do not like the work done by Biden. That’s actually his “best” disapproval rating of the year — down from 56% disapproval before he dropped out in April or 60% disapproval earlier this year. Certainly, the more inflation was felt nationwide, the more the public disapproved of Biden’s performance. To dig deeper, we put the word “Bidenomics” to the test in the latest NBC News poll — and it’s clear how voters responded. On the challenge Harris faces to become Biden’s running mate.
By a 2-to-1 ratio (22% favorable, 46% unfavorable) voters disapprove of the word “Bidenomics,” including nearly a fifth of all voters our pollsters consider “swing voters” — people who haven’t been directly elected to the White House since 2016 by the GOP or He voted as a Democrat.
In our poll to get a sense of where that 21% of voters currently sit politically, these voters favored Trump by 7 percentage points over Harris — but they favored Democratic control of Congress by 4 points.
When you look deeper into the “swing voter” category, you see that “Bidenomics” is even more problematic for Harris. Among self-identified independent voters, the positive/negative split on tenure is 16%-49%. “Bidenomics” doesn’t fare better among suburban women (26%-37%) or white women (22%-47%) or women 50 and older (30%-45%).
These are all voting blocs that Harris needs to do well to win this election.
(By the way, that’s what “Bidenomics” is even among Democrats barely popular, 31% view this term positively and 25% negatively. (The fact that 1 in 4 Democrats are negative about the term “Bidenomics” is not a yellow light, but a red-light political emergency.)
That’s why Harris’ comment on “The View” last week could be potentially devastating to his campaign just weeks before Election Day. Asked to identify a decision Biden would have made as president that he would have taken a different path, he replied: “There is nothing that comes to mind.”
It’s a quote that could linger uncomfortably over this campaign for him in the final weeks of the campaign — or even for years, if, say, John Kerry’s infamous 2004 statement about funding for the Iraq war was brief: “I’m going to vote against it.” I actually voted for $87 billion before I gave it.
In 2004, Kerry tried to explain the difference between the two different votes he received for war funding, but the way he phrased it reinforced the image the George W. Bush campaign was trying to paint: Kerry was indecisive and rambunctious. When you lose a fairly close election, as Kerry did in 2004, there are many things to point to. But the quote proved devastating for him in messaging and hung over the campaign.
Similarly, this year the GOP jumped at any chance to turn this campaign into a simple referendum on the party in the White House. With good reason, as explained above: Biden is personally unpopular, and his record is professionally unpopular. In fact, Biden is now no more popular than Harris or Trump. The saying “There is nothing that comes to mind” speaks in this regard.
Those who already approve of Biden’s tenure or dislike Trump may see Harris’ comment as a big deal. But remember that the voters who will decide this election are not very excited about Trump’s behavior. If there were, they still wouldn’t be swing voters.
In the modern political era (defined by me as the post-World War II era), the office of vice presidents is not a good one. Of the four who have tried to succeed incumbent presidents, only one has won: George HW Bush in 1988. Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and Al Gore in 2000 lost extremely close races. If Harris comes up short, he’ll look like Gore, Humphrey or Nixon – another very close race involving a sitting VP.
Between now and Election Day, I expect Harris to find more ways to differentiate himself from Biden. But the clock is ticking and his comments last week only mean he has more work to do and less time to do it.
Meanwhile, there is one aspect of Biden’s popularity that should worry Trump: age. Now that he’s the oldest candidate, his mental and physical stamina is under more of a microscope. If it’s a Biden “hangover” that hurts Trump more than Biden, it means Harris’ team is effectively weaponizing age. Let’s see how it goes.
Popular voice tracking
There have been some analyses Mainly led by Nate Cohn of The New York Timesargues that the possibility of a massive split between the popular vote and the Electoral College, which has been a big story in the last two presidential elections, could end this cycle.
In our latest NBC News poll, our pollsters ranked the head-to-head test by key Trump/GOP states, key Harris/Democratic states, and then more closely contested states in the middle. Then they compared the results of this period with 2020 and 2016.
What’s interesting is how much smaller the Democratic lead is in blue states in 2024 than in 2020 and 2016. In 2016, Trump lost the main Democratic states by 22 points, and in 2020, he lost them by 24 points. In this latest poll, Trump lost key Democratic states by just 13 points.
Meanwhile, Trump’s support rose slightly in blue states but stagnated in red states and battleground states. In 2016, Trump won key GOP states by 18 points, and in 2020, his margin in red states was 16 points. It was also 16 points in the most recent survey. And the battleground state margin moved only slightly between the sides, stopping at 1 point all three times.
What does it all mean? If the polling trend continues and Trump does well in blue states without winning any, the Electoral College winner (whoever it is) is more likely to carry the popular vote as well. Who knows what kind of tour Trump has in the blue state arena. will affect his blue-state support over the next 10 days, but one thing is certain: if he wins the popular vote, it will be a different kind of mandate than the one he claims he won. in 2016.