This Is Why Trump Is Trouncing Biden In Bombshell New York Times Swing State Poll: RCP's Tom Bevan

4 months ago

Tom Bevan, Co-Founder and President of Real Clear Politics, joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss a major new New York Times poll showing former President Trump leading President Biden in most swing states, why Democrats are running out of time convincing voters the economy is improving, comparing the polls today to those of past cycles, and more.

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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is co-founder

00:07and president of RealClearPolitics, Tom Bevin. Tom, thanks so much for joining me.

00:12Great to be with you, Brittany.

00:13As we sit here right now, we are less than six months away from the 2024 presidential election,

00:19and an alarming new poll for President Biden came out just a few days ago. A New York Times

00:24Siena poll shows former President Trump beating President Biden in five out of six

00:29battleground states. What are your main takeaways from this poll?

00:34Well, obviously, I mean, this is where the election is going to be decided. I call them

00:37the big seven, but you can say there are six if you want to exclude North Carolina. But look,

00:45this is very similar to the New York Times' finding six months ago. They did a similar poll

00:52in November. And despite the fact that Trump's been on trial and Biden had a good state of the

00:57union and has been hitting the campaign trail, these numbers really haven't improved for Joe

01:02Biden. It's the same story. Inflation is really, really hurting folks in these battleground states.

01:08And when you dig into the numbers, the problem for Biden is Trump is doing really, really well

01:13among young voters and among Hispanics and black voters. And those are three really,

01:19really important pieces of Biden's coalition. And they are not on board with him now. He's

01:24got six months to win them back, but he certainly has a lot of work to do.

01:27I want to break down why former President Donald Trump is gaining momentum when it comes to these

01:32demographics. This poll found that President Trump and President Biden are essentially tied

01:38when it comes to voters under 30 and Hispanic voters. And the former president also has over

01:4320 percent of support of black voters. So why is Trump seeing more success in these demographics,

01:49more so than he saw even in 2020? I mean, I think it is it's it's more

01:53about class than than identity. Right. I mean, typically, you know, the economy is by far the

02:01number one issue, inflation in particular. And it's hurting working class people of all colors,

02:07of all shapes and sizes. And and, you know, Biden is now the incumbent and people he's had four

02:13years to do the job. People are not satisfied with despite the fact and this is part of the problem.

02:18Right. The administration continues to tout the good numbers on, for example, the unemployment

02:24rate or the stock market. And these are in many ways abstractions to people. While it is true,

02:30those are good numbers. And, you know, Biden likes to say, well, we have a really robust economy.

02:34The problem is, you know, for people who are living in their everyday lives, it's the price

02:38of a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk or what their mortgage rate is or what their interest

02:42rate on their credit cards are. And so by those metrics, people are really upset with Biden. They

02:48don't feel like he's done a good job. And they're looking back at Trump with some nostalgia and

02:52saying, look, things were better under Trump. And and I'm sure they're forgetting about all the,

02:58you know, the baggage that came with Donald Trump. And Joe Biden is certainly the Biden

03:02campaign's job is to remind them of that and try and make this a binary choice between the two and

03:08hope that enough people would rather stick with Biden than go back with Trump. But right now,

03:13people are looking rather fondly about the economy under Donald Trump.

03:18Some Democrats I've talked to have said the economy is doing well, but there is lag time

03:24about six months, eight months lag time for people to feel it. Do you think that's enough

03:28time for these numbers to change, especially for Biden, especially in these key states?

03:34I don't. I mean, we're getting to the point now where people are, you know, a lot of this stuff

03:39gets, as they say, baked in the cake. Right. Impressions about the economy are going to be

03:44formed. They're hardening. And remember, the election six months away. But in a lot of states,

03:48people are going to start voting weeks before that, in some cases a month before that. And so

03:52they're really they really are running out of time. And again, you know, a good a good

03:58employment number, unemployment number is not nearly as important as getting a good reading

04:05on inflation. And the last few readings we've had on inflation have been bad. They've been

04:09pretty awful. And so that's why I think, you know, Biden is it's going to be really hard for him to

04:16change minds unless there's some real improvement on the inflation front in the next few weeks.

04:21And that's that's a tall order. Trump is leading in Arizona, Georgia,

04:26crushing Biden in Nevada by double double digits, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. So let's take a walk

04:32down memory lane, if you will. In 2016 and 2020, both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were leading

04:39in the polls. Biden also won all these states in 2020. So knowing that, is this especially

04:44troubling for President Biden? Sure. I mean, yes, clearly. And, you know, these are the states that

04:53again, if you go back to the big seven that I mentioned, including North Carolina,

04:58Hillary won. I'm sorry. Donald Trump won six of those seven states in 2016. The only one he lost

05:04was Nevada. And Joe Biden won six of the seven in 2020. The only one he lost was North Carolina. And

05:10so it's it's one of those situations that with Biden behind this much. And you mentioned in

05:18again, if The New York Times poll showing Biden or Trump up 13 points in Nevada, that may be a bit

05:25of an outlier, but it's certainly consistent with other polls in Nevada showing Trump with a sizable

05:29lead. I think his lead there in our Rooker politics average is approaching six or seven percentage

05:34points. So you really do see the sunbelt is kind of getting away from Biden, Georgia, Arizona,

05:39Nevada, where he's closest within a point in our average, our Rooker politics average is in Wisconsin,

05:46in Michigan. And he's at about, you know, losing trailing Trump by about a point in Pennsylvania.

05:52If he can win all three of those blue wall states in the upper Midwest, he'd win this election 270

05:58to 268. It would be that close. But it's it's looking like more and more. That's his path. And

06:04it's it's getting kind of narrow because some of these other states, as I mentioned, are starting

06:08to get away from a little bit. Why do you think the sunbelt in particular is getting away from

06:13President Biden? Yeah, that's a great question, because those are the states that have the most

06:19diverse populations. Right. You've got Hispanics in in Arizona and Nevada. You've got a huge

06:26African-American population, which really helped him win Georgia last time around.

06:31And it's actually the states that are more white that where Biden is closest. And so you're going

06:36to see we've already seen the Biden campaign just launched one hundred and forty million dollar

06:42ad buy to target rural voters in the upper Midwest. So I think they are also seeing that that's really

06:48going to be their their most realistic path to get to 270 electoral votes. But I think again,

06:53I think it's the economy. I mean, I just think with with inflation and with housing costs,

06:59it's very, very difficult for people who to make make do. Even people who are making,

07:06you know, over one hundred thousand dollars a year are having to pinch pennies. They're

07:10not able to go out to eat as much. It's just it's a really tough economic environment.

07:15And again, that that cuts across all demographics, all racial lines,

07:21and it just becomes more of a class issue. I know you mentioned earlier that there does

07:26based on this poll seem to be Trump nostalgia for the economy. As we sit here right now,

07:31he is currently on trial in his New York criminal hush money case. Does this poll

07:37show that his legal issues don't matter to voters or don't matter just yet?

07:42That is a great question that remains to be seen. There is some data in some of the polls

07:47that show that if Trump is convicted of any of these charges, not just in this case, but in

07:51any of the other cases that are out there, that that might be some sort of tipping for

07:56tipping point, particularly among independent voters. I'm skeptical of that. I honestly think

08:02for Republicans, they all believe or most Republicans believe that none of these cases,

08:06none of these charges have any merit and are all politically motivated. And Democrats believe the

08:10opposite. They're all you know, they already believe Trump is guilty. That's that's, again,

08:14baked in the cake. I happen to think, though, given how much attention these trials have gotten,

08:21that independents are pretty well informed and have already made up their minds about this.

08:26And so I'd be shocked if there were, you know, a big number of independent voters if Trump is

08:32convicted of, you know, let's say this trial, any of these charges that they're going to say

08:36suddenly, oh, well, because of that, you know, I'm suddenly not going to vote for Trump. I just

08:41don't think I might be wrong. And we'll have to wait and see how that plays out. But I just I'm

08:45skeptical that that's going to fundamentally alter the landscape of this election right now.

08:50I think that's really emblematic. Your point is I sit my office is in New Jersey and we see

08:55the New York City skyline. So there has been a plane and a banner that has been flying by

09:01in Manhattan that says, when you indict him, you unite us, MAGA, as he is in court. But I am

09:07curious. These polls have made headline after headline over the last few days.

09:12What do you think's missing from the national conversation?

09:15You know, I don't know exactly. I mean, I guess the main thing that I would say is,

09:21you know, polls are simply snapshots in time of where the electorate is. Right. That is certainly

09:26it's an important indicator. You know, polls this far out from the election typically aren't as

09:31predictive, don't have as much value. They will have more value as we get closer and closer to

09:35the election. But the other piece of an election is is simply turnout. Which party can do a better

09:41Which party can do a better job of finding their voters and getting their voters and their ballots

09:47to the polls? And Democrats have shown they have a much better handle on that over the last couple

09:52cycles than Republicans do. Republicans are still I mean, Donald Trump is still even up until a few

09:56months ago was telling voters, telling his supporters, don't, you know, mail your ballots in.

10:01I mean, that you would show up on Election Day. And Republicans found out the hard way in 2022

10:06that that simply doesn't work in this day and age. All of the changes that were made to accommodate

10:11for COVID in a lot of these states, Republicans have been trying to claw those back and change

10:17those laws as opposed to sort of playing by the new rules as they exist. And I think they've now

10:22shifted into that mode. But we'll see. They've got a lot of catching up to do. I think Democrats,

10:27that's the other piece that's probably not getting as much attention as it probably deserves,

10:31because I think Democrats have the advantage on the ground in a lot of these battleground states.

10:36And, you know, that's going to count for at least a couple of percentage points in terms of what the

10:40final result will be. We have a lot to look forward to in the next few months, including

10:45potential debates, the RNC, the DNC, seeing Trump's legal challenges unfold even more.

10:52What are you looking for specifically between now and Election Day?

10:57Well, I'm going to look and see if there's if there's any real movement in the data. Again,

11:02there's a general landscape of this election. The backdrop is pretty set and we know what the

11:07terrain is. Now, that could be upset at any moment by an event, terrorist attack, something that goes

11:12on, a natural disaster. I mean, who knows their events will and often do intervene in elections.

11:19I mean, you look back to the, you know, leading up to the 2008 election. That was all about the

11:23Iraq war until the Great Recession happened. And then it became all about the economy.

11:28Covid was, you know, a crisis that was top of mind in the last election that no one really

11:33saw coming until, you know, March of 2020. So certainly there are things that can happen. And

11:38I do expect that there will be a couple of surprises and twists and turns along the way.

11:43The irony is that, you know, the primaries have been pretty sleepy. I mean, we knew early on

11:47for most of the data that this was going to be Biden versus Trump. So I suspect this general

11:52election has some some twists and turns in it still. And that might come at the conventions

11:57that might come after the conventions. It could be, you know, one of these one of these,

12:02you know, events that intervene. But I think and it's hard to know what it's going to be,

12:06but I certainly expect that we will see a couple of those in the next six months.

12:10Do you think the general sleepiness, to your point of this primary season,

12:14will affect turnout and the fact that this is a rerun of something we all witnessed four years ago?

12:21Yeah, I mean, I've often said, right, this is a movie, you know, we're getting the sequel of a

12:25movie we didn't really like the first time around. Voters have made that clear in their

12:30expressions. They prefer different candidates. So, you know, two things about that, ironically,

12:36or maybe not ironically, but that would sort of indicate that there's an opportunity for a third

12:41party candidate to emerge. Right. This big opening for a third party candidate to emerge.

12:47RFK Jr. is trying to be that candidate. It's not clear that he's going to get very far. He's at

12:52about 9 percent in our RealClearPolitics average of a bunch of national polls. So we'll see whether

12:58he is able to continue to sort of emerge and be a player in this election. But I think the other

13:05thing is, and this is ironic, because despite the fact that people are saying, look, I don't I don't

13:11this I'm not excited about this election or I don't like these choices, I think this is going

13:15to be a huge turnout election. I think both sides view the stakes as existential. Democrats are

13:21telling their voters, listen, if you don't turn out and vote, our democracy is over. And Republicans

13:26are telling their voters, listen, if you don't turn out and vote, you know, we're going to lose

13:30America to the, you know, the progressive left and, you know, whatever names you want to call

13:35them. And so both sides have ginned up their bases, I think, to the point where they've made

13:41this election into sort of an existential threat. And so I think despite the fact that people are

13:45saying, man, I don't really you know, a lot of people are going to hold their noses. A lot of

13:49people are going to turn out and vote in this election. Tom Bevin, I appreciate all of your

13:53insights. I appreciate the conversation. Thanks so much for joining me. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Brittany.

This Is Why Trump Is Trouncing Biden In Bombshell New York Times Swing State Poll: RCP's Tom Bevan

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