Joe Biden continues to have a clear lead in national polls for the Democratic nomination. But, as we enter the stage at which early state polling starts to matter, he’s in real trouble.
Recent polls have put Biden in fourth place in Iowa and third place in New Hampshire. True, he’s ahead in Nevada, which is the third contest, and in South Carolina, where his strong support among black voters has given him a commanding lead. A New York Times/Sienna poll also shows him with a lead in some later states — Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. But as we’ve seen time and again, these primaries do not happen in a vacuum. If he falters in Iowa and New Hampshire, he’ll likely see his numbers fall in Nevada and South Carolina, which in turn would hinder his performance in the states that come after that.
To be sure, there’s enough of a traffic jam up top right now that it’s perfectly conceivable that he can sweep Iowa and New Hampshire and be off to the races. But absent that, what he needs is a decent enough performance in the first two states to still be considered viable by the time the more favorable contests come along.
The next best result to winning the first two races would be an outcome in which Iowa and New Hampshire are won by two different candidates, and he ends up in second place both times. In that scenario, no other candidate would be able to claim clear front-runner status, and while Biden wouldn’t have won a race outright, by coming in second, he will have beaten each of the winners one time.
Either way, short of victory, if he can at least ensure there’s a jumble coming out of Iowa and New Hampshire, then he may be able to build a bridge from the earlier primaries where he’s fading to the later ones where he’s in better shape.
Of course, his declines in Iowa and New Hampshire, which receive the most attention early in the race, could be a leading indicator of where other polls are going to go once voters elsewhere have had more time to focus on the candidates.
