Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include quotes from pollsters and political scientists on the impact of the poll. The headline has been updated.
As the New Year begins, so do new polls about the new presidential election that will take place this November.
While American politics has been somewhat less than easily predictable lately, when it comes young voters and minorities, things are trending in the wrong direction for incumbent Joe Biden according to at least one new poll.
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Trump Now Leading With Key Parts of Biden’s 2020 Coalition
Donald Trump running as a Republican has presented plenty of challenges for the Democrats, notably maneuvering them into major platform changes, particularly on foreign policy. What comes after that are traditionally-Democratic voting blocs.
Ones the Democrats would like to keep.
USA Today reports:
President Joe Biden heads into the election year showing alarming weakness among stalwarts of the Democratic base, with Donald Trump leading among Hispanic voters and young people. One in 5 Black voters now say they’ll support a third-party candidate in November.
In a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, Biden’s failure to consolidate support in key parts of the coalition that elected him in 2020 has left him narrowly trailing Trump, the likely Republican nominee, 39%-37%; 17% support an unnamed third-party candidate.
…
Biden now claims the support of just 63% of Black voters, a precipitous decline from the 87% he carried in 2020, according to the Roper Center. He trails among Hispanic voters by 5 percentage points, 39%-34%; in 2020 he had swamped Trump among that demographic group 2 to 1, 65%-32%.
And among voters under 35, a generation largely at odds with the GOP on issues such as abortion access and climate change, Trump now leads 37%-33%. Younger voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020.
If the center holds on some of these numbers, 2024 will be very different than 2020.
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Will This Trend Continue Heading Into 2024?
These are sizable numbers of racial minorities and young people now moving toward Trump, or at least just leaving Biden.
As the story notes, these groups were important parts of Biden’s coalition in 2020.
The Political Insider reached out to two experts to break down the poll and what it means going forward.
Cornell University Professor William Jacobson is skeptical:
“I think it’s too early to tell if this is a real realignment or a mirage. We saw similar claims in 2020, and there was no realignment among black voters. As of now it’s all hypothetical among voters, and Democrats have not yet unleashed their campaign against Trump. So I wouldn’t get too excited.”
On the other hand, Mark Mitchell, head pollster for Rasmussen Reports, sees clearer skies for Trump than Professor Jacobson:
“Our latest 2024 matchup has Biden winning black voters by only 22 points, and Trump wins with Hispanic voters by 23 points. Those are massive advantages for Trump over previous elections, and if they hold, they make Trump unbeatable. While it’s true that focusing on abortion might be a good strategy for Biden to win back some of these voters, the truth is that there is probably an equal or larger opportunity for Trump to keep them by focusing on the issue of illegal immigration. Our tracking index of US sentiment towards immigration, Sponsored by NumbersUSA, is near the lowest it has been since Biden was elected, despite the fact that black and Hispanic voters’ opinions are relatively unchanged on the issue.”
Experts may be split, but the sentiment appears to be real, whether or not it translates to votes remains to be seen.
