CNN Numbers Cruncher Nukes Biden’s Claim That He Could Have Won in 2024
“Based on the polling data, I categorize Biden’s statement that he could have beaten Trump as ‘flat-out bonkers.'”
With roughly a week and a half to go before his sole presidential term ends, President Joe Biden sat down for an exit interview of sorts with USA Today where among the issues discussed was whether Biden believed he could have won in 2024 had he stayed in the race.
Not surprisingly, Biden said he believed he could have defeated Donald Trump based in part on polling he was allegedly looking at at the time:
Concerns about the age and acuity of America’s oldest president flared with his faltering performance in a televised debate with Trump in June. Democratic leaders who feared Trump would trounce Biden, among them former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urged him to withdraw from the race, an unprecedented step so late in the campaign.
After he reluctantly pulled out in July, Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, then lost in November.
Could he have won?
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes,” Biden said, adding he based that view on polling he had reviewed. He expressed no such confidence when asked whether he had the vigor to serve another four years in office, though. “I don’t know,” he replied.
As Legal Insurrection noted last month, it’s a claim Biden has made before behind closed doors to those close to him, while also expressing regret for dropping out.
“Biden and these aides have told people in recent days that he could have defeated Trump, according to people familiar with their comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations,” the Washington Post reported in late December.
It was a suggestion that was strongly disputed by, among others, independent Pennsylvania journalist Salena Zito, who pointed out, for instance, that Biden was doing poorly in the Keystone State before his disastrous June presidential debate.
“No, I’m sorry it would’ve never happened,” she tweeted at the time.
“It would’ve never ever happened. He was bleeding voters in Pennsylvania demonstrably even before the debate. Anyone who spent any time on the ground reporting in my home state knows this as [true] because he had lost the working class,” Zito also wrote.
And now, as Biden goes public with the belief he could have bested Trump in November, CNN‘s expert numbers cruncher, Harry Enten, is weighing in, calling the claim “flat-out bonkers”:
“Joe Biden in his exit interview with USA Today claims that he could have beaten Donald Trump had he stayed in the race,” Enten said in the video. “So, this begs the question, could Biden have won the 2024 election had he [stayed] in the race?”
“Truthfully, I categorize his statement as flat-out bonkers,” he added.
Enten went on to explain that Biden was behind Trump in all the battleground states prior to the debate, and speculated that he would have never made up for all the lost ground by November:
“The bottom line is this: Joe Biden was behind, he had always been behind and he most likely would have stayed behind,” Enten said Wednesday.
Watch:
Based on the polling data, I categorize Biden's statement that he could have beaten Trump as "flat out bonkers."
Biden was well behind Trump when he dropped out. Biden never led in all of 2024. And no incumbent president who was anywhere near as unpopular as Biden has ever won. pic.twitter.com/lGk9h8pygU
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) January 8, 2025
Enten was one of the few data gurus who stayed consistent with his prognostications both before and after Biden was forced out of the race, pointing out along the way that Vice President Harris’ path to the presidency was not going to be as smooth as others in the polling/media industries were making it out to be.
Enten was right then and, in my opinion, he’s correct now. It’s hard to envision any scenario where Biden would have been able to turn things around after what the CNN debate exposed about him once and for all. The damage was just too great.
-Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter/X.-
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Comments
Biden’s complete sentence was, “In my head I think I could’ve won. Cause in my head, in my head, I do everything right.”
His insistence that he could have beaten Trump is more proof of his senility.
Biden can actually make a complete sentence in his head or anywhere else?!?! I have seen no evidence of that anywhere!
Pro tip: if you want to win in 2024, don’t cheat and install a delusional, narcissistic mental retard in 2020.
Senility will do that to you. I remember late-stage Ali.
As for CNN, they are quite the stable of camp followers, aren’t they? Suddenly they are telling the truth. I wonder what changed.
If we had more than 50 states, Joe would have lost them, too.
My dog is smarter than Joe Biden; my dog is stupid, sweet as pie, but stupid.
My dog is smarter than Joe Biden
Yes, but can you control your dog with strings?
I use Milk Bones, the dog equivalent of ice cream. Much food for thought there.
Yes, but with Biden, more food does not mean more thought. That’s the reason for the strings.
The food was for your thought, not the dog’s!
I don’t like milk bones. I prefer pupperoni.
I think 2020 proved that being smart has nothing to do with winning the presidential election.
he cud have won only if they cud print 99 billion fraudulent ballots in time.
Sooner or later, all those DEI people forget how to make the presses go brrrrrrrrrrr.
Just my opinion, but it isn’t a stretch to think he truly believes that he could have won. He didn’t have a clue as to what the country truly thought of him (and maybe he remains blissfully unaware). For the past 5 years he has been kept in a bubble of controlled environments with as little unscripted interaction with average Americans and the press as possible. In the election postmortems, there was reporting that he hadn’t been shown any election polling for many months because it was actively being kept from him. Jill and the rest of the family would have known things were bad, but without him in office there goes the power, prestige, perks, and profit-making.
I predicted Biden would do worse. I think I had Trump at 345 electoral against Biden. Against Harris I projected 312.
Simple reason is I adjusted the polls for their 20-year biases. On average, Republican candidates due +3 better than the polls say.
After the disaster of a debate where his numbers dropped even lower I’m not sure what he thinks was going to happen to turn that around. Trump was not going to debate him again, he didn’t have to. Biden couldn’t do more interviews because he can’t speak in coherent sentences. He couldn’t do campaign events because he wanders around the stage like a wind up toy. He keeps saying he could have won but doesn’t explain how.
Biden can actually make a complete sentence in his head or anywhere else?!?! I have seen no evidence of that anywhere!
I don’t believe Biden could have won even if he was the only one running!
You have to,love the use of language here. He says ‘The statement is flat-out bonkers.’ He could have used the words ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’. He could have said. biden was delusional. He could even have said the statement was a lie. Instead he used a word with no negative freighting, one that was obviously chosen specifically to soften the blow. Even when they tell the truth, the MSM manages to slant it towards the state-approved point of view.
What’s truly astonishing, is for Biden to admit that he was aware of his mental deficiencies, yet he still is president and ran for a second term, he was intentionally hoping to DUI the USA.