In one key race after another, Biden is running far behind his 2020 performance against Donald Trump

This article first appeared in the Washington Post on July 20, 2024.

President Biden has resisted calls by leading Democrats and pundits to step aside and make room for a younger, stronger candidate. These calls are not signs of disrespect for Biden; they reflect a determination to defeat former president Donald Trump.

Biden’s inner ring of loyalists deny that polls show alarming weakness — but they are reading the data the wrong way. By comparing Biden’s position today with polls from four years ago, the president’s weakness becomes plain. In the seven swing states where the election will likely be decided, Biden is trailing his 2020 numbers by margins of up to 14 points.

Given that Biden’s 2020 electoral college victory came down to three states where his margin was less than one point, this double-digit erosion is a disaster in the making. And if these numbers were not bad enough, in 2016 and 2020 the polls underestimated Trump’s strength.

In 2020, national poll averages right before the election predicted Biden would win by 8.6 points. He won by only 4.4. That history would suggest the situation is even more lopsided than the current polling data shows.