Joe Biden is just demolishing President Trump if you believe the latest national poll. There’s a good reason to think this won’t last though.
Former Vice President Biden leads President Trump 50% to 39%, according to the latest poll by Quinnipiac University, whose polling operation is nationally renowned. (If you’re wondering, Quinnipiac’s late-May poll in 2016 showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump by 2 points, which ended up being her final margin of victory in the popular vote.)
Here’s the interesting thing: This looks more like a Biden surge than a Trump collapse.
The new Quinnipiac poll shows a tiny downtick in Trump’s approval rating, from 45% in April to 42% now. The current 42% is in line with what Trump’s approval has been for most of the past 3.5 years, so it’s not as if the virus or the economy is causing a ton of people to abandon Trump. It seems something is causing people to come to terms with Biden.
The RealClearPolitics average bears this out. Biden’s average was 46.8% on May 10. He’s exceeded that in every poll since then, and his average is now 48.7%. Trump’s average has moved, on net, less than 1 percentage point.
This isn’t great news for Biden. He’s been mostly absent in the past month. If he surges when nobody is paying attention to him, that bodes ill for the fall, when he will presumably debate Trump three times and the national press will be focused on the election. Biden should be more cheered if he saw Trump’s approval rating cratering, but that’s not happening. He’s still at his normal 42%.
Whatever you make of this Quinnipiac poll, this much is clear: Biden is polling ahead of Trump.
Biden has led Trump in basically every single poll all year. Two polls in April showed a tie. One poll back in February showed Trump ahead of Biden 52% to 48%. That was back when Biden had lost Iowa and New Hampshire and when there was no deadly pandemic sweeping the United States and causing unprecedented job loss.
In general, the numbers are pretty consistent. Biden is between 47% and 50% in 12 of the last 16 national polls covered by RealClearPolitics. And Trump is between 41% and 44% in 11 of those 16. That is, Biden is consistently polling in the high 40s, and Trump is consistently polling in the low 40s.
In the swing states, it’s the same story. Biden has led Trump in every Michigan poll this cycle. Biden has led Trump in every Wisconsin poll and every Pennsylvania poll since mid-February.
If Trump loses Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania without picking up a new state, he will lose to Biden in November. Making things worse for Trump, Biden generally leads in Florida.
Yes, things can change. Maybe when Biden starts speaking, they will.
