Maybe Joe Biden is not the great hope Democrats thought he would be.
President Trump is polling ahead of the former vice president in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to surveys released this week by researchers at Baldwin Wallace University, Ohio Northern University, and Oakland University.
Moreover, Trump is polling in a dead heat against Biden in Wisconsin, although he trails the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee in Michigan.
The same researchers’ data at this time in January saw Trump trailing in all four states.
Put more plainly, Biden may have a real problem on his hands, especially if the COVID-19 pandemic keeps him off the campaign trail and out of the view of a public that is getting plenty of face time with the president.
The surveys, which polled some 3,817 registered voters in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, find Trump winning Ohio 47% to Biden’s 43%. They also show Trump carrying Pennsylvania 47% to 45%. Then there is Wisconsin, where Trump is neck-and-neck with Biden at 45%.
Lastly, there is Michigan, where Biden leads 47% to Trump’s 42%.
The surveys, conducted March 20 and March 25, also find that more than 50% of respondents in all four states approve of Trump’s handling of both the economy and the coronavirus epidemic. Only roughly 30% of voters in each state believe Biden could do a better job. Ouch.
In fact, according to one of the researchers who conducted the surveys, COVID-19 may actually be one of the things contributing to the president’s positive polling numbers.
“Like most crises, the president is likely to see a ‘rally around the flag’ effect with a surge of support from the electorate,” said Robert Alexander, the founding director of Ohio Northern University’s Institute for Civics and Public Policy. “We find this to be the case with Trump, which may be inflating his numbers a bit.”
He adds, “As concerns over COVID-19 persist and economic conditions worsen, it is likely Trump’s approval numbers will wane. We are a long way from November, so we should be cautious about over interpreting results right now – especially given the unprecedented circumstances we are currently experiencing.”
The researchers’ new polling data, which have margins of error between plus or minus 3.3 and 3.9 percentage points, are obviously good news for the president and bad news for Biden, whose campaign has made his strong polling numbers against Trump one of their chief “electability” arguments.
Still, Trump would be stupid to get too cocky with these new numbers out of the Great Lakes region. For starters, the results of the hypothetical match-ups between the president and Biden are within the survey’s margins of error. Second, more respondents in all four states said they were “almost certain” to vote against Trump than said the same for Biden or even Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Third, this is only one data set. This is not the trend. Finally, as one of the survey’s researchers noted, it would be crazy to get too comfortable with these numbers, given that the U.S. and world economies are teetering on the brink of ruin thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s an intriguing finding where Trump’s numbers are up, but people are worried about the economy and personal finances in particular,” said Baldwin Wallace’s Community Research Institute associate director Lauren Copeland.
She adds, “If the economy continues its downward spiral, I don’t know if Trump’s support will hold up.”
No one knows what will happen, especially when it comes to this president. That is the lesson of the 2016 election. Trump won the Midwest once already, and there is now a viral pandemic keeping his main opponent from the national stage. So, who knows where this goes?
