The rematch between President Biden and former President Trump is heating up as polls show the two rivals neck and neck with six months to go until Election Day.
Polls are likely to fluctuate in the months leading up to the election, but for the first time since October, the average from The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ shows Biden narrowly leading Trump, 45% to 44.9%.
Although the news is good for the president, the data also shows some positive points for his rival. Trump is narrowly ahead of Biden in the critical swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to polling averages from The Hill’s Decision Desk headquarters in those states.
“If you asked me who I would rather be today, I would rather be Donald Trump,” said Scott Tranter, director of data science at Decision Desk headquarters.
Tranter told The Hill that the election could end up coming to a small group of states.
“If I had to guess six months from now, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona would be the closest,” he said. “Obviously, these will be the inflection points.”
Several key issues, including the economy, abortion and immigration, could also end up being decisive.
“The reality is that any issue can be a deciding factor because we are talking about a small universe of voters in a select group of states,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist.
For Biden, polls show that the flow of migrants across the southern border and the economy appear to be weak points for him.
A Decision Desk HQ/NewsNation poll released Sunday found that 46 percent of voters think Trump is better suited to handle the southern border, while just 26 percent of respondents said Biden was the candidate to trust on the border.
“Research on issues has long told us the same thing: the economy, prices and the border,” Heye said. “And on these issues, Biden is completely underwater and that’s what he needs to fix.”
The president is also trying to figure out how to get a message across to the economy as inflation continues to be a problem. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released last week found that 88% of Americans said the economy was important when deciding who to vote for, and 85% said the same about inflation.
Biden touted job growth under his administration and made a series of campaign stops highlighting the economy and job growth. Last month, Biden traveled to Pennsylvania the day after Tax Day. Biden also made stops in upstate New York to highlight federal funding for Micron chip factories.
However, although the president has continued to promote job growth, recent economic indicators show that Americans are still feeling the high prices. Government data released last week showed that U.S. economic growth fell below 2 percent during the first quarter of the year, while inflation began to rise again to 3.5 percent year over year in March, according to the Index Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index.
Trump and Republicans often use the economy to attack Biden and Democrats. Trump criticized Biden’s handling of the economy last week during an appearance outside the courtroom at his secret trial in New York.
The same ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 46% of respondents said they trust Trump to manage the economy, while 32% said the same about Biden.
Democrats say there is still time to improve economic messaging.
“We don’t have to apologize for the successes we’ve had, and they’re certainly further amplified by the threat that the other side brings with them when it comes to fundamental values and issues in this country,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist.
While Biden and his Democratic allies work to build on their economic messaging, Trump and his Republican allies struggle with how to get their message across on abortion. Democrats have successfully messaged the issue since Roe v. Wade. Wade was recalled in 2022. During that year’s midterm elections, Democrats managed to avoid what was expected to be a massive Republican surge, largely due to their messaging on abortion rights with the federal government. law that legalized the procedure was annulled.
Sixty-five percent of respondents to a CNN poll last month said they disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the law. Trump praised his conservative-leaning judges and their decision to overturn Roe as an achievement of his administration.
However, a KFF survey released in early March found that only 12 percent of voters said abortion was the most important issue for them in the general election.
But Democrats also say their ultimate pitch to voters goes far beyond abortion and gives voters a choice between what Democrats say are their fundamental freedoms and the loss of those freedoms.
“Let’s just talk about freedom and democracy as we know it, because every other thing you can imagine falls under that and everything is at stake,” Seawright said, emphasizing the importance of Democrats taking the lead on “kitchen table” issues.
Democrats are also tired of sending too much messaging about Trump’s mountain of legal issues, despite some polls suggesting voters would be turned off by a conviction in one of his criminal cases.
“This is a ‘what if’ and it’s moving toward a ‘probably not,’ so to have that as your silver bullet, I think, is a very foolish mindset,” said Democratic strategist Jon Reinish, noting that the Biden’s campaign has so far avoided messaging about Trump’s legal troubles.
OneABC News-Ipsos Pollreleased last year found that 52 percent of Americans consider the allegations against Trump in his New York silence case to be significant, while the latest ABC News-Ipsos poll released this month found that 16 percent of Trump supporters said a Felony conviction would lead them to reconsider their support, while 4 percent said they would withdraw their support in that case.
“Obviously, this Manhattan case will have a verdict before the election,” Tranter said. “If he is convicted there, will that hurt him among some independents? Probably,” he added, cautioning that ultimately he doesn’t believe a conviction would have a major impact on voters.
One aspect of the race that hasn’t changed is Americans’ general dissatisfaction with the idea of a rematch between Biden and Trump. According to aMarch AP-NORC Polljust 21% of voters said they were excited about Biden, and 25% said the same about Trump.
Voters also expressed concerns about the candidates’ age and cognitive health. The latest NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll showed that 74 percent of voters were concerned about the impact of Biden’s age and cognitive health on his ability to serve as president, while 58 percent said the same about Trump.
One variable that could have consequences for November is the emergence of a viable third party candidate. The most competitive so far has been Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flipped from Democrat to independent earlier this year and has been polling in double digits. Both Democrats and Republicans fear that Kennedy could divert support from their respective candidates, although it remains to be seen what impact this will ultimately have.
“The overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see this movie,” Heye said, referring to the Biden-Trump rematch. “It’s not so much that one of them can beat the other, it’s that either one can lose to the other.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
