Biden Has Lost Little Swing-State Support Following First Debate

mozz@mbin.grits.dev to politics @lemmy.world – 138 points –
Biden Leads Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin After Debate
pro.morningconsult.com
50

This poll is a notable outlier... The article is basically just a blog post from the polling outfit itself...

Here's results on 65 different polls for Michigan:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president-michigan.html

The vast majority of polls have Trump leading Michigan, but a lot of those are also within the margin of error and otherwise very close.

What is with Lemmy's insistence on pretending that the debate either didn't hurt Biden, or actually helped him?

It's like a lot of people here actually believe that by pretending nothing is wrong, that means nothing is wrong.

FYI that New York Times link is simply an easy aggregated URL that shows the results for, and then directly links to 65 different polls for Michigan.

Sister it’s kinda crazy to me. Lemmy will downvote news posts with credible polls showing Biden dropping, and upvote any questionable source that says otherwise. I’m also a Democrat but to me a credible news story should not be disparaged for saying something I dont want to hear. It doesn’t do any good to hide from the truth. “You must know the enemy in order to meet him on the battlefield”- Sun Tzu or idk maybe I just made that up.

I mean what is pro.morningconsult? I’ve never heard of that ever. And I’ve seen Rueters posts get downvoted! Rueters!

I wasn't kidding, it is actually the blog of that market research/polling firm.

It's dressed up a bit to make it seem like it's delivering news, but it's primarily just writing up their own market research and polling data in the form of articles, or more accurately, blog posts.

The results of a poll are news and usually as factual as you can get. Their poll might be an outlier or they might have a polling bias, but unless you think they're drawing conclusions unsupported by the poll or think their methodology is wrong, there's not much to criticize.

You need to tell Media Bias Fact Check that stuff; they have it way wrong then. They’re treating them like some kind of news source, and even analyze the accuracy in hindsight of their polling and everything.

Morning Consult is a well known polling company. If you've followed polls and aren't familiar with them I'm amazed. They do some sort of online polling which makes them cheap and fast, but there's nothing suspicious about them and they haven't shown any bias I've recognized. It's not a questionable source, but is just one poll so it might not be accurate.

Oh, I think you know the reason why they are suddenly deeply concerned that they might not be reliable

Randomly bringing mod trigger words like "blog post" into it is also a notable activity

You're delusional.

You went out of your way to find one of the very few polls showing positive news for Biden in Michigan and then posted links to their company website where they write blog entries based on the results of their market research.

Additionally, you're badmouthing anyone who points out that Morning Consult's latest Michigan polls are outliers.

Maybe they actually have the best current methodology, but unless you want to write up a white paper on why that is, stop speaking ill of anyone who points out that their poll is an outlier, or that your link isn't to a news article, but to a market research company's blog.

Especially when those commenters come with sources, such as the link to aggregated page of 65 polls that I posted. Which by the way, includes Morning Consult's figures as well.

There's nothing that would appear in a news story about the poll that isn't in their own release. Their releases are actually usually more informative because they run through multiple results from the poll, not just whatever the headline point is.

You're delusional.

No. I am objective. You are committed to a narrative so thoroughly that you're trying to make me look like the out of step one.

I'm extremely concerned about Biden's performance in the debate, and his chances in November.

I'm also extremely annoyed by the news's wall to wall coverage which suggests that Biden's performance in the debate was an emergency. That, to me, is a much bigger, much longer-lasting, much more sinister and dangerous thing for our democracy than is the fact that Biden is old as fuck and did horribly in the debate. If you are hand-wringingly concerned that Biden did a bad job, you should be apoplectic that the media is as bad as it is, and trying as hard as it is to hand the election to Trump. They're doing infinitely more damage to Biden's chances than Biden himself ever could. He could have literally puked on somebody and passed out like George Bush, and it wouldn't have been as big a deal as what the media does every day.

The news -- and, presumably, you, although I don't feel like looking back in your history to check -- freaked the absolute fuck out about how Biden was doomed because of the debate, and started writing all kinds of articles with it as a foregone conclusion that he's fucked and we need to find a replacement. The electorate barely cared. He was like 0-2 points behind going into the debate. He was like 2-4 points behind after the debate. Is that a big deal? I mean... yeah, it's relevant. It's definitely not good. But to me it is shockingly small.

The media pivoted absolutely effortlessly from "OH MY GAWD Biden is tanking in the polls and it's a FUCKIN CATASTROPHE" to "OH MY GAWD Biden is 2 points behind in the polls like he's always been and it's a FUCKIN CATASTROPHE", without even having enough shame to acknowledge that there was any discrepancy. And you know what? It fuckin worked. Most of the American people were too stupid to even notice the bait-and-switch. Including, apparently, quite a lot of people right here in this thread.

I won't say Biden's not in trouble, and with him, the whole country. But the exact people who are so running-in-circles-wailing-in-panic concerned about how he fucked it all up, are doing their level best to create the fuckup and accelerate it as much as possible. I talked in the other thread about how unhappy I am, also, with our chances in November given Biden's performance in the debate.

Before I continue, how do you feel about agreeing to abandon any effort to pretend I said something different than that last sentence I said above, and talk about the polls without pretending I'm trying to put my head in the sand about the danger we're in because of the debate and the Democrats' prospects and options in the election?

6 more...

He's still projected to lose according to composite polling like 270toWin, Rasmussen, RealClearPolitics, and fivethirtyeight. It's hardly changed in months and it never looked great. I recommend people get out there and start trying to change peoples minds with methods proven to be effective and nonthreatening.

This is 100% accurate -- in the previous posting, I actually had a whole little spiel about it. Yes. Things are still fucked. If anyone is reading this thinking the intent is "oh good we can relax" then that is absolutely not the intent. The purpose is:

  1. It's extremely notable that the media is so relentlessly pushing the narrative that Biden tanked because of the debate (which was, of course, horrifying.) I'm actually pretty surprised that the American people are capable of determining that the old as fuck feeble guy is a better choice than the explicitly malicious shoot-the-protestors guy. But, I guess it does make some kind of sense. This is important context to keep in mind any time you are reading one of those "Biden's fucked now" stories -- it says more about the news outlet than about the impact the debate had, outside of the media landscape.
  2. Courage! As mentioned above the American people are smarter than the media. I kind of hope that something happens within the Democrats to make me feel better about how the election will go. But, apparently, most people aren't as simple minded as to say "Well, forgot about wanting to keep contraception legal and not deporting all the immigrants, that guy's old; now I want the guy who's just death for all, dressed in a spray-tan skin suit."

the American people are smarter than the media.

They absolutely are not if you are speaking in gross generalities. Maybe the people you are used to interacting with are, but there's a lot of stupid mother fuckers in this country that cum from watching Fox News.

I don’t think the debate was going to change any of those people’s minds though

I have to say, I agree with you with some level of surprise about the lack of promised collapse in support for Biden even after a pretty gruesome fuck-up of a debate.

The only thing that matters is mustering support from the politically uninvolved, transient voters who have the power to manipulate the swing state electorate. At the moment I don't see Biden inspiring anyone to vote that wasn't already going to vote, and that should scare the literal fuck out of everyone.

The baked in Republican advantage due to the electoral college is already so steep to overcome without these fucking self-inflicted wounds the DNC seems hellbent on saddling the country with every four years. At least Republicans actively telegraph their evil for everyone to see. The evil of the DNC, on the other hand, is subtrefuge. They seem more than willing to doom society rather than cede control or overturn the status quo in favor of progressive populism. They are the fucking enemy too, and it is high time we start treating them as such.

„Biden is projected to lose“ is spun a bit negatively for a 49-51 split, no?

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/?cid=rrpromo

Basically it’s anyone’s game now, and it will come down to extremely few votes in the end.

538 is still 50/50 because they have a base assumption that it's too early to tell anything. So the algorithm is pretty hardcoded to read 50/50 for another couple months.

We have the polling though and his battleground polling absolutely took a hit after the election. For example Biden either needs PA and one other state or all but one if he loses PA. So that's a pretty hard requirement. He was basically even with Trump in PA the night of the debate. But now that gap is opening up, the wrong way. There are very clear indicators of a an impending catastrophe.

Sssshhhhh you're fuckin up the narrative

We've pivoted from "the debate was a CATASTROPHE look at these polls falling" to "how can you say Biden is still viable when he's 2 points behind right after something majorly depressive to his numbers happened and there are only 4 months more to go"

It's actually pretty impressive how seamless it went from caring deeply how much his poll numbers have dropped to caring deeply how they're sitting at practically exactly the same level they were, which is slightly behind

Also there's this

Mozz, please don't get bamboozled. One of this guys "keys" for his mathematical model is "Charisma". That's a stat he pulls out of his ass and pretty disqualifying in the world of statistical models. His claim to fame in predicting modern elections is ridiculous. Half the people I went to college with could predict the majority of races with reasonable accuracy. Obama McCain was probably the one toss up until the VP debate, which Palin lost to Biden really badly. Hillary is the one people like to point to, but people watching the numbers were shouting warnings at the democrats only to be called bernie bros.

Oh, I don’t give a shit about his “keys”. I was talking about the part I linked to - basically, why the fuck are you guys covering this like a normal presidential election instead of as an effort to hijack the presidency by a hostile and malevolent force that’s explicitly hostile to the whole American system and willing to kill to get its way. Especially since anyone in the media will be first in the Gulag line if it is able to come to power, it seems like an absurd and horrifyingly dangerous dereliction of the media’s responsibility.

Wow, I'll be honest. I hit the stop button the second I saw him and this kind of attitude is exactly why. You may consider Trump to be a fascist con artist, but 74 million people did vote for him in 2020. The media are doing their job. And if they came out in such a partisan manner they would instantly lose the trust of anyone not a diehard democrat. Their job isn't to ring alarm bells, it's to faithfully report news. And they've done so, that's why for example Trump had to distance himself from Project 2025.

His rant that they aren't being partisan may feel good to you, but it shows a complete lack of understanding in what role the media plays in our democracy.

It's still a projection to lose. Far too close for my taste, and if you look at the 270towin EC Projections Trump only needs 2 swing states at the least while Biden needs 3, Republicans have 12 victory outcomes to Democrats 9, 1 potential tie. It does not look good.

I'm willing most of the undecided voters are Republicans who know Trump is awful. Anyone who was already voting against Trump is going to continue doing that.

My hope is that Kennedy will steal those votes from Trump.

I hate to be so defeatist, but I honestly don't even consider most voters to understand politics at all. Trump voters don't realize they're voting for tax cuts for billionaires, raises on everyone else, and a massive deficit. Biden voters probably don't know anything he's done in the last three years. Kennedy voters could be siphoning from either or both uneducated groups.

You and me having frequent discussion and access to unbiased news feeds, we're a minority.

But yeah, hopefully trumpets jump ship in the Generals.

I firmly believe there are no voters undecided between Trump and Biden. If anyone SAYS they're undecided, it's Trump voters who won't admit who they're voting for, or people trying to decide between voting and not voting.

Then we're already screwed. Because that puts Trump into landslide territory.

That's not how the Electoral College works though. If Biden doesn't make 270 then it gets thrown into Congress and they vote by state delegation. It doesn't matter if the end result is 269-Biden; 227-Trump; 42-RFK. That's a Trump win unless some state delegations change hands in November; (The new Congress votes).

Worth noting three things:

(1) This is from Bloomberg's company...

Need I remind everyone that the Billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, is almost solely responsible for shoving the Biden nomination down our throats in 2020.

How, you do you ask?

He explicitly wrote that he would only join the contest if he thought Warren or Sanders could win. So he joined, mirrored Biden's platform, spent a ton of money on ads and attack ads on the progressive candidates (I believe it was in the range of a half a billion dollars), built his infrastructure, then bowed out and handed the keys to Biden.

It may very well be valid, but take with a grain of salt.

(2) This pollster is rated pretty lowly compared to gold standard pollsters, according to 538. (Rank 116).

(3) This poll currently remains an outlier until further top-tier pollsters corroborate.

He's 7 points down in Pennsylvania according to this poll, what a headline to run with.

I would bet actual cash money that Michigan is gonna be red and that Biden is most definitely not leading the state.

I don't even see him trying to campaign here because SE Michigan will go out of their way to overrun his campaign with protests even if he tries to hide in the Ford plant like the last 2 DNC candidates did.

So we're gonna have another candidate who doesn't campaign in swing states, this time out of fear that he'll continue to look bad.

Michigan isn't the problem. Pennsylvania is the problem; there's an extremely narrow path to victory for Biden if Trump wins Pennsylvania. Basically without PA, they need to flip Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, or Kentucky. And then they need nearly every other state that's up for grabs.

Doubt he'll win Pennsylvania, he's got that whole settlerman problem there.

I think you vastly overestimate how much the average Democratic voter cares about the Palestinians

😢

He's only partially wrong. Biden really needs Michigan. and that's the state with a large demographic of people personally impacted by the genocide. If Trump takes MI then the Dems are back to needing Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. And Arizona democrats skew very progressive. Like a leftist reactionary movement to the previous Republican regime. In the same may poll I reference above, where Pennsylvania doesn't really care, Arizona voters were very vocal about not caring. Which means they probably plan to strategically vote for Biden while trying their hardest to ignore the issue. But some genius GOP operative is bringing that issue up there, I guarantee it.

This is part of the reason I was pushing so hard for us to pressure Biden on the issue. If he used the Leahy Law properly he'd have plenty of cover and it would be fine. Now he's stuck with this because many people would see it as a completely political move now and it would hurt more if he took any action on it now.

I'm not sure Pennsylvania is one of those states. In May 2% of registered voters said the Palestinian Genocide was their most important issue. When asked directly about the issue most Democrats felt partial to the Palestinians, but Independents skewed Israel.

So from a party perspective in this particular state; the people they can depend on will likely vote Democrat anyway and they're more likely to pickup votes by continuing to ignore the mountain of evidence against Israel.

Lol Biden won the state by 1.2 points in 2020 so automatically losing a whole point of people who view Palestine as their most important issue probably is good, right? And you've got fetterman out actively telling the base to fuck off.

Hey look I don't care, good luck to you people lol

Those numbers don't rise that high if he's picking up 2 independents for every dem that stays home. And that 2% number is split as well. Michigan is the real problem, he must get PA, but without MI it's still a hard road to victory.

Where have I heard that math before lmao

Well yeah that obviously hinges on him picking up independents.

If Biden loses a state that's only gone red once in 40 years, it's over for him.

@jordanlund@lemmy.world Hi. I didn't editorialize the headline -- Mbin fills in the headline based on the HTML title. Open up the link, mouse over the tab, and you'll see the same title I had posted. I just didn't edit it after MBin filled it in, which maybe I should have. Anyway, here it is, reposted with the current headline. If I had to guess, I would say the site changed the headline in the article without also changing the HTML title tag.

It would have been nice to get a heads up, so I could just edit the title and preserve the conversation, but all good in any case. If you want me to do that instead, just let me know and that sounds fine (by which I mean, substantially better) to me as well.

How are these polls taken? Online? What if you create a bunch of fake email accounts and vote, skewing the results?