Is Biden on track for defeat? The debate, explained.

Plus: How happy are you? What will SBF's sentence be? And more. March 28, 2024 [View in browser]( Good morning! If you've consumed any kind of news about the 2024 presidential election cycle recently, you're probably aware: There's a roiling debate about just how in danger Biden is. Senior correspondent Andrew Prokop's here with a good framework for understanding the competing perspectives. —Caroline Houck, senior editor of news   [joe biden] Ian Maule/Getty Images How bad are Biden’s reelection chances? Is [Joe Biden]( in deep reelection trouble, or is there good reason to think he’s headed for a comeback? The question has divided the political world for months. The case that Biden’s on track for defeat is pretty simple: He’s trailed Trump in a large majority of the national and swing state polls conducted [since last September](. If you take the polls seriously, he’s in trouble — and those who fear Trump’s return to power should be very worried indeed. The case for a Biden comeback, on the other hand, goes something like this: It’s still too early for the polls to tell us much, but there are a lot of reasons we might logically expect Biden to do better. After all, the economy has [improved](. Trump is headed to trial. Biden has a [fundraising advantage](. Democrats have been doing rather well in special elections, and they exceeded expectations in the 2022 midterms. And eventually, the general election will bring focus from the media and campaigns on a binary choice between Trump and Biden. That all sounds convincing enough. But the Biden skeptics fire back: Aren’t you just reasoning backward from your belief that Biden should be winning — and ignoring the best evidence, which states that things look pretty dire for him? [Joe Biden looking downcast] Win McNamee/Getty Images The case that Biden is in deep trouble Start with Biden’s low approval: According to [FiveThirtyEight’s poll average](, Biden has been deeply unpopular since late 2021 — his average approval rating has been in the high 30s or low 40s since then. Since the State of the Union address, Biden’s number has slightly improved — from 38.1 percent on March 7 to 39.3 percent as of March 27, per FiveThirtyEight. But that’s still a very bad approval rating. At this point in Trump’s term, [his approval]( was about 45 percent — more than 5 points better. And, of course, he lost. Trump has led most national polls: An approval rating can’t tell you everything in a two-way race because your opponent may be deeply unpopular too. But the head-to-head poll numbers haven’t been comforting for Biden lately either, since they’ve shown Trump ahead for the past six months. Trump leads most swing state polls: Of course, the presidency is decided by the Electoral College, not a national vote. And swing state polling for Biden has been very bad. - In [Georgia](, [Arizona](, and [Nevada](, Trump has led in every poll tracked by FiveThirtyEight since November, often by sizable margins. - If he loses the three states above, Biden would need [Michigan](,[Pennsylvania](, and [Wisconsin]( to win. Trump has led in most — but not all — polls in all three states in recent months. Other bad signs: Besides the polls, the skeptics believe there are other reasons to doubt whether Biden will be able to pull it off. - Age: Voters have regularly said in polls that Biden’s age [is a problem for them](. - Inflation: It has slowed recently, but voters still may resent hikes in prices and then interest rates that have occurred while Biden was president. [Joe Biden wearing sunglasses] Win McNamee/Getty Images The case for Joe Biden being the Comeback Kid Start with skepticism about early polls: With so much of the fear that Biden is doomed based on his bad polling, it’s worth noting that the election is still about seven months away. For comparison: Polling from late March 2016 showed [Hillary Clinton]( leading Trump by [11 points](. Instead of early polls, look at recent election results: In 2022, Democrats performed well in swing states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The party held on to the Senate, and the House didn’t see the [typical midterm blowout]( (the “red wave” many predicted) but instead a very close contest Republicans only narrowly won. Democrats have also done quite well in [special elections]( over the past year. Now, don’t get too carried away with this. Democrats’ coalition is now heavily skewed toward college-educated high-engagement voters who are more likely to turn out in off-year elections. Skeptics argue that such an advantage will surely drop in a higher-turnout presidential year, when infrequent voters are more likely to show up. Upcoming campaign and media dynamics may help Biden: Biden comeback believers contend that three main factors will likely help the president in the coming months. - An improving economy: Voters have been negative about the economy for years, but their perceptions [have improved somewhat]( in recent months. - Trump may become a felon: Trump’s indictments don’t seem to have hurt him up to this point, but [polls have regularly shown]( many voters say they will reconsider supporting him if he’s actually convicted of a crime. His first criminal trial, in the New York hush money case, is set to begin April 15. - More attention on Trump and Republicans’ extremism: As the election approaches, a [well-funded]( Democratic campaign and outside group apparatus will spend heavily to remind voters about the threat Trump poses to American democracy and the threat the GOP poses to [abortion rights]( — both issues that helped Democrats triumph in key 2022 races. The mainstream media will increasingly frame the choice before voters as “Trump vs. Biden” as well. Perhaps many of the disgruntled Democrats and tuned-out independents who currently say they won’t vote for Biden will eventually choose the lesser of two evils. Can we already see the comeback in polls? Perhaps the strongest point made by the Biden skeptics is that the polls have been quite consistent for quite some time. Sure, they say, you can tell yourself that Biden will bounce back at some point — but those polls keep not budging, so when will it happen? Indeed, I wrote about Biden’s bad polls [last April](, [last September,]( and [last November](, and evidence for any comeback in that time has been scant. But polls released this week have shown some improvement for him in [swing states]( and [nationally](, pointing toward a race that’s about tied, not one where Trump has a clear edge. Again, don’t get carried away. It’s too early to say whether this will prove to be a durable trend. The election was quite close in 2016 and 2020 — so close that any confident prediction about who would win was, in retrospect, overconfident. Given the repeat candidates, it’s reasonable to expect another close election this time around. [—Andrew Prokop, senior correspondent](   [Listen]( The Baltimore bridge collapse The Key Bridge disaster is yet another reminder of the vulnerability of global shipping. 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