New National, State Polls Show Biden Losing Ground to Trump, Warren, and Sanders
President Trump’s relentless attacks on Joe Biden over the Ukraine issue have proven damaging to his campaign.
Polling gurus like FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver have been quick to point out in recent weeks that former Vice President Joe “Biden’s numbers haven’t declined at all” since the Trump/Zelensky phone call story first broke.
But new state and national polls released this week show the cracks in Biden’s support wall are now causing the wall to crumble.
A national poll done by Suffolk University and USA Today shows Biden’s lead over Warren has been “slashed in half:”
Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to lead a turbulent field for the Democratic presidential nomination, a national USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, but his margin over Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been slashed in half. And most Democratic voters say they could still change their minds.
Almost exactly one year before Election Day – and 96 days before the opening Iowa caucuses – Biden was backed by 26% of likely Democratic primary and caucus voters in the survey. Warren was second at 17%, followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 13% and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10%.
Biden’s lead over Warren, now 9 percentage points, was 18 points in the last USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll, taken in late August. His standing has fallen by 6 points since then; hers has risen by 3.
Another national poll released this week indicates Trump has gained ground on Biden:
In the Morning Consult-Politico poll, Biden’s lead over Trump slipped to 11 points, down from 20 points in the same poll from last month.
The poll shows a growing strength for the president in a match-up against Biden, currently the Democratic 2020 front-runner, as Trump previously trailed Biden by as much as 28 points in a Morning Consult-Politico poll in June.
In particular, his lead nationally among independents has all but disappeared, evaporating from an 11-point lead among the group of voters in June to just a 1-point lead today.
In New Hampshire, Biden has fallen to third place behind Sanders and Warren:
DURHAM, N.H. — Former Vice President Joe Biden suffered a precipitous drop in the latest New Hampshire poll, falling to the lowest point his campaign has seen this cycle, while Sen. Bernie Sanders recaptured his first-place spot narrowly over Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Sanders (I-Vt.) was the first choice of 21 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, followed by Warren (D-Mass.) at 18 percent, Biden at 15 percent and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent, according to the Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire and co-sponsored by CNN.
[…]
Biden has lost 9 points since the previous UNH poll, conducted in July. In that survey, Biden had a slight advantage over Sanders and Warren, who were tied for second place with 19 percent each.
So what’s happened to the Biden campaign? As I wrote earlier this month, Biden has simply lost control of the narrative. He hasn’t performed well at any of the debates along with his penchant for gaffes and flubs. These issues have popped up repeatedly during the course of his campaign, which has led people to question his health and whether or not Biden has the stamina at his age to go the distance in a presidential campaign.
It’s also undeniable that Trump’s relentless attacks on Biden over the Ukraine issue have hurt him politically, with donors demanding Biden take on Trump more forcefully. As reported by The Hill a few weeks ago:
Donors complain that a string of verbal gaffes and inconsistent debate performances have contributed to a sense of worry about the strength of his candidacy.
There is also some dissatisfaction with how the Biden camp has responded to a new series of attacks from President Trump, who has seen his own calls for Ukraine to investigate the former vice president turn into the impetus for an impeachment inquiry in the House.
“Look, let’s be honest. He’s a weak front-runner,” one major donor said.
[…]
“A lot of us are really concerned,” another Democratic bundler said. “We think Biden is the strongest out of the lot, but he hasn’t exactly shown that he can play the part yet.”
These big-money donor concerns have led to a serious cash-flow problem for the Biden campaign, a very unusual problem for a frontrunner campaign to have. This is a big reason why he’s reversed his position on super PACs.
Is it close to being over for the Biden campaign at this stage? No. While Trump, Warren, and Sanders have all gained ground on him, he’s still technically the frontrunner with a lot of support.
But considering the slow but steady erosion in that support over the last several months, Biden needs to right the ship before the caucuses and primaries start in February. If not, he’s in for a brutally rude awakening once the results from those contests start to come in.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Yesterday’s national polling: Trump beats all democrats.
The polls are worthless. Trump would beat any of these clowns by 8-10 points nationally.
I disagree with the first sentence under the headline. It isn’t Trump who was dirty and threatened Ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor who was investigating Biden’s son and the company he was being paid huge money from. It was Biden’s actions, which he bragged about.
It’s nearly impossible, unless you are a National Socialist, to argue that Biden was telling a parody in that video. Of course Schiff – who needs to be spit at by every decent person in this once great nation – then facts mean nothing.
Barr had better start getting the indictments ready.
I’ve loathed this man since the “They want to put y’all back in chains” lie. Now he’s even more loathsome– he looks like a skull, fake-smiles like a ghoul, lies every time he opens his mouth, and plays the stupid-person hustle “C’mon, man. Here’s the deal”.
But wait! There’s more! He sold us all out to foreign countries for money.
BPTSKFL! I want to live long enough to see him humiliated–face rubbed in the dirt humiliated, has a stroke and can’t speak with 50 million people watching humiliated. Not even sure that would be enough. But it’s a start 😀
House Democrats certainly haven’t helped.
Choosing *this* as the issue to impeach over means many more Americans have heard about the Biden family’s corruption.
Quite honestly, I never thought Joe was “in it to win it”. His heart and soul didn’t really want to run but he got talked into it. You can see it in his demeanor, Joe looks defeated. Even without Hunter and the Ukraine problem, Joe was never a strong candidate, other than name recognition and the media doing all his hard lifting.
Time for Joe to call it quits.
Look for him to bow out for “medical reasons”/per physicians advice.
I wonder which of the clowns PDJT would really like to see running against him. I’d guess fauxahontas but it could be sleepy joe.
The SOB is probably still the dem party’s best candidate, which is why he remains in the lead.
We’re seeing decades of democrat, dnc and msm collusion crashing down. joe biden is and has always been an idiot. Slick packaging/marketing put him in place and kept him there, despite his total lack of any real qualifications or accomplishments. A whole slew of politicians are also being outed as total idiots: mazie hirono, eric swalwell, ted lieu, AOC, steve cohen… the list is long. There are certainly politicians on the other side of the isle who are equally worthless, such a mitt pierre delecto romney. in 2016, we finally elected someone smart, pro-America, and determined to fight for Constitutional principles, freedom, and the American people.