To the people who want to push Biden out, especially those in the corporate media, should we listen to the polls or shouldn’t we? My position is that polling is broken and pollsters are still trying to figure out how to fix it(That’s a whole separate article). But if you’re using polls to justify pushing out Biden, then lets look at all the polling.
I keep hearing about polls like “Democrats want someone besides Biden”. Of course we do! Presidential campaigns are all about finding a candidate that has that magical balance of broad support with some deep support. I have several candidates I would like better than Biden: Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Katie Porter, Gretchen Whitmer, etc… However, there are people that would like them less and have their own list. A generic question like “would your prefer Biden or somebody else”, is unfair. A survey taker can conjure up their perfect candidate and be like, “hell yeah! I’d like that better!”. I was watching them tout these Biden vs “Mythical other Democrat” on MSNBC for 20 minutes including — the usually very intelligent — Rachel Maddow.
But these unhelpful pollsters and pundits aren’t doing any head-to-head checks of who people actually prefer. The only pollster who checked, YouGov - God bless them, has only tested Biden vs Harris. And guess what!? The majority preferred Biden. July 6th they tested, Biden was +15. Tried again on July 16th, Biden +9. So, are we gonna listen to the polls? If so, voters seem to still prefer Biden.
But, many of the elites in the party don’t actually care about democracy and will of the people. They just want to win. And now they think Biden cannot win. So who do we replace him with that has a better chance according to the polls? When you look at the polls that asked about Biden and someone else, here are the apples-to-apples* comparison results:
*apples-to-apples means that we are comparing the same group (All Adults, Registered Voters, or Likely Voters) and had the same options (Only gave Trump as the alternative vs gave a bunch of 3rd party options too).
Nationally
July 16th Ipsos for Reuters, Harris does 2 points better with Adults and Registered voters
July 16th YouGov for The Economist, Biden does 3 points better among Registered voters
July 15th Morning Consult, Biden and Harris are both -1 against Trump
July 15th HarrisX for Forbes, Biden is doing 2 pts better than Harris against Trump
July 15th SurveyUSA for Joe Cassidy, Biden does better than Newsom and Harris. Only Michelle Obama does 1 point better than Biden.
July 14th BigVillage, Biden does 2 to 3 points better than Harris among All Adults, Registered Voters, and Likely Voters
July 13th Manhattan Institute, Harris does 1 point better than Biden who does 1 point better than Whitmer.
July 11th Noble Predictive Insights for The Center Square, Biden does 1 point better even though both lose.
July 10th Marist College for NPR, Biden and Newsom both beat Trump by 2 points. Harris only by 1. Whitmer is even with Trump.
July 10th Beacon Research for Fox News, Newsom is even with Trump. Whitmer, Harris, and Biden all lose by 1 point.
July 9th YouGov for The Economist, Biden down by 3, Harris down by 4.
July 9th Hart Research for NBC, Harris and Biden both lose by 2.
July 9th Ipsos for ABC, Harris wins by 2. Biden even.
July 8th Redfield & Wilton, Biden down by 1, Harris down by a whopping 7
July 8th Emerson, In head to head Biden is even. Harris, Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Shapiro are all down by 6 to 10 points.
July 6th Bendixen & Amandi, Harris wins by 1. Biden loses by 1. Whitmer and Newsom lose by even more.
Arizona
July 16th Insider Advantage, Biden is down by 5 but Harris is down 6 points.
Pennsylvania
July 11th Siena for NYT, Harris does 1 to 2 points better depending on group(adults, RV, LV) and options(head to head vs 3rd party)
Virginia
July 15th Emerson College for The Hill, Biden is even with Trump. Harris down 2.
July 12th Siena for NYT, Harris does 2 pts better than Biden. Both still win the state.
July 11th SoCal Research for On Point Politics, Biden does 3 points better. Biden wins, Harris is even.
Washington State
July 13th SurveyUSA for KING-TV, Harris does 1 point better than Biden. Both handily beat Trump.
Georgia
July 16th, Insider Advantage tested Georgia and Florida: Biden did 7 points better in Georgia and 4 points better in Florida.
Wisconsin
North Star Opinion for [some Right Wing website], Harris loses to Trump by 1. Biden loses by 2.
As you can see, Biden is doing better in a large majority of the national polls. In individual states, he is doing better in Virginia and Georgia. Harris, according to only 1 poll in each state, is only doing 1 point better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The polling does not make the case that Harris — or anyone— would actually be a better candidate against Trump than President Biden.
Now, you might say, “well, Harris\Newsom\[whomever]” haven’t been campaigning nation wide yet. They could get better. And you might be right, but they could also just as likely get worse. And with Biden, who could also keep getting better as the campaign goes on and more people make their decision. He also still has the advantage of incumbency and a kickass economy. But, at this point, we’re not listening to the polls anymore are we? We are just getting into pure punditry. Are we seriously going to try and push out a sitting President and overturn actual voter primaries based on punditry!?
Conclusion
To repeat myself, I don’t trust polling very much. But the folks trying to Dump Biden seem to LOVE pointing out the latest bad polls for him. Here is the bottom line. Maybe Biden’s age will lose us this election, but maybe it won’t. I don’t know. My point is, nobody knows that for sure. Anyone who keeps referring to polls to justify pushing out Joe Biden is either incompetent at reading and interpreting polls, or worse, they are f**king lying to you. But, If there is a sudden slew of polls that suddenly change the calculus, I’ll write a follow-up diary to let you all know.
Optimism
I like to end articles on a positive note. If you want some good news, you should note that, thanks to some positive swing state polls, Biden has a teeny-tiny slight advantage against Trump according to the 538 election model — and its been improving since July 5th.