Trump leads Biden in key states a year before the election

Former US President and candidate for this post, Republican Donald Trump, is ahead of the current head of state, Democrat Joe Biden, in the swing states that are most important for victory. This is evidenced by a survey conducted by The New York Times (NYT) in collaboration with Siena College a year before the elections, which are scheduled for November 5, 2024.

Voters in five of the six swing states – Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania – will choose Trump over Biden, according to the poll. The former American leader has the largest lead in Nevada: there 52% are ready to vote for Trump, while 41% are ready to vote for Biden. In Georgia and Arizona, 49% were in favor of Trump, in Michigan and Pennsylvania – 48%. Biden managed to win a virtual victory only in Wisconsin, where he scored 47% against Trump’s 45%.

In addition, a significant number of respondents – 71% of the entire electorate and 54% of supporters of the current president – considered Biden, who turns 81 on November 20, too old to successfully perform presidential duties. At the same time, only 19% of his supporters and 39% of the electorate as a whole said this about 77-year-old Trump. In addition, 62% of respondents considered Biden a person lacking effective “mental acuity.” Voters polled by a margin of 59% to 37% said they trust Trump more than Biden when it comes to the economy.

It is noted that both Biden and Trump are “deeply and equally” unpopular with voters. Moreover, two-thirds of survey respondents said that the American nation is “going down the wrong path.”

According to the NYT, in 2020, the key to Biden’s victory was his success in swing states from the so-called rust belt – Michigan and Pennsylvania – along with successful results in more southern Arizona and Georgia. Victory in these states and Wisconsin gave Biden a total of 73 electoral votes out of 276. Trump then received a total of 262 electoral votes. His activism in swing states led to one criminal charge for calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after the election to “find” the 11,780 popular votes he needed to win. Now, in all of these states, with the exception of Wisconsin, public opinion is tilting in favor of Trump, the most likely Republican presidential candidate.

The NYT poll, practically the official mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, is part of a coordinated attack on Biden, the purpose of which is to remove him from the presidential race, says Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The current administration has failed to develop a clear line of behavior in the Middle East, as a result of which the country has become even more divided along the lines of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. As a result, according to a number of Democrats, Biden has become an ineffective president who is bringing internal and external problems to the country, and therefore should not serve a second term. The current owner of the White House, the expert continues, is losing popularity simultaneously both among the pro-Israeli electorate and among the Arab population of the United States, which have a representation of 5 to 10% in the mentioned key states. Taking into account all these factors, it is not surprising that Biden is being attacked in order to take him out of the election race, Vasiliev sums up.

In the US presidential elections, states without a stable party affiliation, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, are especially closely watched, explains Andrei Kortunov, scientific director of the Russian International Affairs Council. Because of the diversity of the electorate, vote counts in similar states in past elections have been the subject of controversy and accusations of fraud by Republicans. The decisive influence of swing states will continue in the 2024 elections, the expert is sure.

According to Kortunov, many Democrats really believe that Biden, due to his age, is not suitable as a candidate and that his program is aimed at the past, not the future. Nevertheless, the party machine in the United States always works for the incumbent president, and Biden has a lot of influence and administrative resources concentrated in his hands. In addition, Kortunov adds, the Clinton and Obama clans, who now de facto control the Democratic Party, are close to Biden, which means that its establishment also supports the current president.