Attempts by President Joe Biden to recapture momentum in the presidential race have run headfirst into a wall of polls that show him badly trailing former President Donald Trump in key states.
The polls, released by Bloomberg News/Morning Consult, show Trump with a clear 6-point lead over the incumbent in six of seven battleground states that will determine the 2024 election. Those states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona — were either lost or only narrowly won by Trump in 2020. The only lead still held by President Biden is in Michigan, where he is ahead by just 2 points.
The survey’s overall result is an amalgam, with President Trump holding narrower leads in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania while extending his gains in Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
Respondents told pollsters that the state of the economy is top of mind, with 55% claiming it is getting worse and only 18% saying things are improving. The employment rate was only marginally better, with 23% of those surveyed saying hiring is picking up its pace while 36%, the largest portion, say hiring is becoming worse. Another 32% claimed it is staying the same.
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Since the end of Roe v. Wade, abortion has ticked up in the list of issues prioritized by swing voters, the poll shows. More than half, or 52%, called abortion an “important issue” when deciding whom to vote for in November. Another 25% called abortion a “somewhat important” factor when they vote.
Fissures within the Democratic Party’s traditional base may also be playing into President Biden’s weakening standing. Among Black voters, recent polls have shown President Trump garnering support from nearly 1 in 5, padding his results in places like Georgia where nearly one in three cite African American heritage. At the University of Pennsylvania, student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have divided alliances among progressives and forced Biden to play defense as he combats outright antisemitism on college campuses.
Neither can Democrats fully rely on the concerns of voters over abortion access to save their leader. In Arizona, where a state court recently upheld an 1864 law allowing women who receive an abortion to be jailed, just 24% of respondents in a recent poll held Trump responsible for the end of Roe despite his nominating three Supreme Court Justices that voted to overturn it.
Trump, meanwhile, has tried to walk a fine line between pro-life activists who helped elect him to the White House and a general public that is less stringent in its anti-abortion stances. The Republican frontrunner recently distanced himself from efforts to enact a national ban, releasing a video in which he celebrates the rights of states to make their own decisions and pointed to legislation in Georgia that protected access to IVF after it was temporarily banned by a court ruling.
