Bearking news: Biden shrinks Trump’s lead in latest Times/Siena poll

Insane that it's this close. Did people really love the Covid economy that much?

It's beyond depressing, r1.

Shows that half of the US population is retarded.

Oh look. Another poll presenting the opinions of geriatrics who answer their landlines.

Thank God nobody under 60 is allowed to vote.

The same poll had Trump ahead by 4 points a month ago, so for what it’s worth, this is positive.

Polls this far out are useless.

Why the fuck is it so close? Trump is a convicted criminal and rapist. What is wrong with the American people? Are they really that morally destitute and clueless?

Yes.

Badly educated .

With the margin of error at +/- 3.3 percentage points, this poll means nothing.

Not true. It means the race is too close to call.

People are extremely low-information. Recently a bunch of people were asked which country is also a continent. Almost no one knew. The most popular answers were Africa and America.

Those are the people who think Trump would be a good president. Republicans make non-stop war on education for a reason.

No, R10. The margin of error means that Biden could have 48% and Trump 43%, Biden could have 42% and Trump 49%, or anywhere in between.

Look it up.

How close to the election should we start concerning ourselves with the polls? Presumably after both traditional convention bumps disappear? Only trends and poll averages before then?

It really should've been a landslide for Biden. But yeah, sadly many Americans are simple-minded, to put it nicely.

[quote] No, [R10]. The margin of error means that Biden could have 48% and Trump 43%, Biden could have 42% and Trump 49%, or anywhere in between.

Yes. Too close to call.

Lawrence has it right.

[quote]With the margin of error at +/- 3.3 percentage points, this poll means nothing.

[quote]Not true. It means the race is too close to call.

Girls, girls! You're both right.

[quote]How close to the election should we start concerning ourselves with the polls?

What this poll shows is that each party's base is committed and the election is going to come down to the undecideds and suburban women. This is good news for Biden because an Emerson poll a couple of weeks ago showed that the undecideds are breaking 3 to 1 for Biden, and part of the reason that Trump is freaking out over his NY hush money case is because suburban women have told pollsters they won't vote for a convicted felon. (I also think that there's evidence that will be presented at trial that Trump really, really does not want out there.)

Month by month, week by week, Trump will erode his lead. This isn't a walk in the park, but in the end Biden will (probably just barely) prevail. I don't think the outcome will be so much confidence in Democrats as revulsion at Republicans... resulting in either hold your nose votes and staying at home and not voting. And thank your stars for the Arizona State Supreme Court.

We’re not “both right.” That fact that the race is too close to call is not “nothing.”

Even if it weren't close, no one ever calls a race six months in advance.

I love how their numbers can be THIS close but it's translated into "everybody hates Biden and everybody loves Trump".

Lawrence is correct when he points out that at this stage in the 1988 campaign Dukakis was up by 18 points and in 1992 that Clinton was in third place, so yes, a poll at this point is meaningless. At the same time, that the polling is so close at this point in the campaign only shows exactly what I said at R17: each party's base is committed and it's going to come down to a very small slice of the electorate that is going to decide the election. With things going the way that they are between abortion emerging as [italic]the[/italic] issue and Trump's criminal trials, it's looking good for Biden (which is good for everyone, even the deplorables who rely on the dole).

I hate you R7 for making me defend Trump, but he is not a convicted criminal … yet.

So the trend (the movement of polls over a period of time) is positive for Biden. And Dems have overperformed polls in recent elections, so things could even be more positive for Biden. The problem is that Biden will likely win the popular vote (as Dems have done in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections) and loose the critical battleground states and lose the electoral college. Abortion absurdity in AZ will help. Biden needs desperately to patch up the wounds with Muslim Americans... he can't win without MI.

All the other recent poll noise (Dems are losing hispanics, blacks, gen Z!!!) is good, I think. Take nothing for granted... target where you campaign $$ goes.

I'll be very interested to see if the trend in the polls continues to move blue with the abortion issues and NYC trial news taking up space. And inflation needs to go the right direction by fall.

R124, Biden won Michigan by over 150,000 votes in ‘20. Whatever loss of vote he sustains over the war in Gaza should be offset by the votes of disaffected former republicans. Michigan strongly leans blue in presidential elections. Trump’s narrow ‘16 win was quite the aberration; the Democratic presidential nominee having won 7 of the last 8 general elections.

This is gonna be an election that demands surrogates like never before. Women talking to women about abortion is critical.

R26 Totally agree. There is clearly slippage among voters of color turning away from Dems. How black leaders are able to build turnout will be critical in PA, MI and WI. How latino leaders are able to build enthusiasm in those communities in AZ, NV and (ready for it) NC. I think GA and NC are def in play, though GA I think is harder. The latino voters in both could make a difference.

And Gen Z? Who the fuck can figure them out. Almost all their info comes from TikTok, Insta and Twitter. The path to their brains is pretty obscured.

Wait - when did they get brains?

OP, that’s terrible for Biden. Trump has how many lawsuits and Biden still isn’t beating him?

Trump will definitely win. Mark my words. At least he can only serve 4 years.

[quote] Month by month, week by week, Trump will erode his lead.

Democrats in 2016 all over again. Turn off MSNBC and deal in the real word. Biden has no shot at winning.

🐻👑

[quote] Why the fuck is it so close?

The same poll shows that Biden has a disapproval rate of 58% and 65% of people think the country is going in the wrong direction, so it’s not that hard to understand.

Republicans always answer “disapprove” “wrong direction” when a Democrat is in the WH. Democrats answer honestly.

R34 = tard

I agree that I think we are seeing some improvement in the polls for Biden.

R24 makes a good point about the Electoral College. The Presidential Election is different because it's fought on a different mathematical battlefield than a Senate race or a House race. Unlike in those races, the person who gets the most votes in a Presidential election doesn't always win because of the disproportionate advantage Republicans have in the Electoral College. It is hard to predict what may happen in the relationship between the Popular Vote and the Electoral College.

What I have been thinking about lately is what type of Electoral College distortion we may see in 2024. The Electoral College distortion has gotten bigger in recent years:

*In 2000, Gore beat Bush by about 500,000 votes (and about 0.5%), but narrowly lost the EC because of the mess in Florida.

*By the time of 2016, the Electoral College distortion had grown much larger. Hillary beat Trump by almost 3 million votes (and 2%) but it wasn't enough to win the EC.

*In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 7 million votes (and by 4.5%), to give Biden a narrow win over Trump in the swing states and win the EC.

That brings us to 2024. Each election will have a different mathematical computation and so it is hard to say exactly what number Biden will need in the National Vote in order to beat Trump in the EC, but Biden will likely need to be ahead of Trump by a couple of percentage points in the PV in order to win the EC. (Between 3 and 4 percentage points perhaps?). The DNC has more advanced math experts than me, so I'm sure they will be crunching these numbers closely in the months ahead.

R36 One angle of comfort I read/was reminded of this week. If Biden wins "the Blue Wall" - PA, MI, and WI - he can lose NV, AZ, GA and then, with that unique congressional district in Omaha, win the EC by ONE vote. I do think PA, MI, and WI are very winnable.

I think a lot of otherwise intelligent small business owners are pro-Trump because of their reflexive fears about government interference with business in the form of regulations and taxation. That's not excusing them, just trying to understand.

Their strategy better write off Georgia. I just think it will revert to type.

That's an interesting question, R38. I'm an entrepreneur and liberal and I have a hard time wrapping my head around all of the complaints I hear from my peers, particularly in the face of what they say when you ask them what is the most difficult part of running a business and they consistently reply that keeping good help is their number one issue. Taxation is at the lowest it's been in decades. Regulation ebbs and flows, but is more a local issue than a national one (and we can all see how regulation rollbacks on the national scale have cost lives, huge financial losses and extensive damage to the environment — such as the case in East Palestine, OH, for example).

One particular pain point intrigues me: health insurance. It's one of the most onerous functions a small businessman faces, difficult to compete against larger companies, and in many cases, is the highest dollar volume line item in the business budget after payroll. I've spent between a quarter and a third of my time managing healthcare benefits. It's insane, and it's completely avoidable, would be better for the business owners/managers, employees and their dependents, the healthcare system and all of its stake holders (excepting the CEOs who draw multi-million dollar salaries), and the government if we had single payer healthcare like every other industrialized nation. You'd think a businessman like Trump would understand this, and his constituents would demand a solution to this problem, but that he didn't and they don't reveals the simple truth that Trump is not a legitimate businessman and his MAGAts are not sophisticated enough to see the forest for the trees.

Ultimately, I think it's that most small business people fall into the regulation-averse category out of a lack of sophistication. I get it; I've experienced the frustration of seemingly meaningless regulation and really wish that we had as relevant discussions about matters that really mattered, but that experience of dealing with compliance on meaningless matters makes me cautious of what would be involved if the matter were as important as health insurance.

R40 A very enlightened and thoughtful reflection. I wish other small business owners had the same perspectives. So many studies projecting the benefit of single payer healthy insurance for small businesses who provide a health insurance benefit. (of course the "gig economy", part time contractors with no benefits, was the late stage capitalism's answer to this burden on businesses)

But now with unlimited access to everything in the digital smoke screens, we adopt tribal positions and find data to support what we want to believe. "government isn't the solution, it's the problem.." has been the tribal chant since Reagan. We see in congress now the problem with having government officials who hate governing.

Hard to think how we shed ourselves of the pattern of believing so strongly in the actual things that harm us. "The younger generation" was a hope, but now we see Gen Z turning rightward...

R40, excellent post! I own a small business, am about to launch another one, I’ve helped many owners over the years, everything you say is true. Small business owners get pushed around and we have zero advocates with government.

I think that when people realize that Trump has advanced dementia his support will diminish. (It's obvious if you listen to any of his rallies, and he hasn't agreed to do any interviews except with friendly interviewers so people don't know how incoherent he is.)

Plus, since he's proposing tariffs that would raise the price of everything in Walmart by 10% and bring on far worse inflation than what we've seen, he's going to turn people off with his policies if they ever bother to pay attention. (Gen Z of course is a lost cause since they can't be bothered to look at anything but TikTok.)

Lived in Boston for four years back in the 90's and loved the city and the people I met there. But, honestly, America 2024 - stupidest country on earth.

R44 Some value in your assessment, however: Putin's megalomania, imperial ambitions built on the myth of Russia's right to dominate the world and holy status as God's instrument of vengeance against socialists, internationalists, gay people, feminists ... and... ready for it... anyone with "impure" blood -- all governed by a corrupt class of criminal oligarchs -- and the Russian people are 75 % in support of. Yeah, Russia is a candidate for World's Stupidist County.