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09.27.2023 0

“Outlier” Poll Showing Trump Dominating Is Mocked by Media but Multiple Other Polls Support Its Findings   

By Manzanita Miller

A new Washington Post ABC News poll is shaking the left to its core showing Former President Trump beating President Joe Biden 51% to 42%, Trump’s largest margin in any poll this election cycle. While the mainstream media is furiously dismissing the poll as an “outlier”, its findings on Biden’s cratering support with swing voters is backed up by plenty of other data.

In a monumental blow to “Bidenomics”, the poll found 44% of Americans say their finances are worse under Biden than before he took office which translates to the worst marks any president has gotten in 38 years of polls. Biden’s overall job approval rating is nearly twenty percentage points underwater, 37% to 56%, and his marks on the economy and immigration are even worse.

Two-thirds of Americans have a negative view of Biden’s handling of the economy, compared to just 30% who approve. On immigration, 62% of Americans have a negative view of Biden’s immigration approach, compared to just 23% who give Biden positive marks.    

Source: ABC News Washington post

While the poll has been harshly criticized as an outlier, the Post says it didn’t deviate from standard sampling, and asked a normal group of the public their views. “In terms of sampling, this survey was conducted using the ABC/Post poll’s longstanding methodology,” writes the Post. “Demographic results are typical. So are partisan preferences; 25% of respondents identify themselves as Democrats, 25% as Republicans and 42% as independents.”

The sampling used was standard and it isn’t as if the poll over-sampled Republicans or those who lean Republican. In addition, the voters who were sampled who voted in 2020 say they supported Biden over Trump by 50 to 46%, which is nearly identical to the 51% to 47% margin each supposedly got in 2020.

Other mainstream news outlets have not taken the poll well and are unwilling to entertain the concept that Biden is indeed slipping underwater, particularly with swing voters. Esquire responded to the poll saying, “you’d have to be on mushrooms” to believe Trump’s numbers with young people are accurate. The Independent echoed this sentiment, calling the Post’s finding about young people, “the most ridiculous” finding in the poll.     

The most controversial findings in the poll are those on young people and minorities losing support for Biden, but this has been a glaring reality for the past several years. According to the Post, Biden has the support of 50% of minority voters, after winning them 71% to 26% in 2020. Taken another way, Biden has lost nearly twenty percentage points with minorities compared to his 2020 numbers.

Are these findings truly “outliers”? The Post poll is far from the first to show cratering support for President Biden among swing voters. Americans for Limited Government Foundation has repeatedly reported on Biden’s slippage with swing voters including women, young people, and minorities.     

Among young people, the Post shows Trump leading with Americans aged 18 to 35 by 15 percentage points, 53% to 38%, which is higher than some other recent polls, however, many polls calculate young people as under aged 30. The Post poll includes those between age 30 and 35 in its metric for young people, which could account for part of the difference. Other polls have shown a steep decline in support for Biden among voters under 50.

Let’s recall a recent New York Times poll showing Biden’s lead over Trump in comparison to 2020 exit polls had dropped by 14 points among women, 30 percentage points among Hispanics, 16 points among Blacks, 14 points among voters under 30, and 8 points among Independents. Those numbers are close to what the Post has found, but the Times found even worse support for Biden among minorities.       

According to the Times analysis Biden’s standing in the polls against Trump is shrinking across all major racial groups when compared to his lead over Trump in 2020. For instance, Biden leads Trump among Blacks 71% to 11% after winning them 87% to 12% in 2020, a 16-point decline in just three years. Biden leads Trump among Hispanics by a narrow 47% to 35% in the poll, after winning them 65% to 32%. This translates to a loss of 18 points with Hispanics in just 3 years for Biden.

What about younger voters? There is mounting evidence that younger voters are increasingly reluctant to identify as Democrats, and Republicans have been peeling off gerater shares of young voters in recent elections.

The GOP gained 7 points with 18–29-year-olds and 15 points with 30–44-year-olds between the 2018 midterms and the 2022 midterms. Democrats also lost voters 40–49 outright after winning them narrowly in 2018.   

Former President Trump has also seen a huge upswing in popularity among young people in the past year. Trump’s approval rating has surged 14 points among Gen Z and 10 points among Millennials compared to last fall according to YouGov surveys.

While the recent Post poll is being dismissed as an outlier, other relatively reputable polls have echoed its findings that swing voters including young people and minorities are fleeing the Democratic Party in droves. Pundits asking how this could happen would do better to reflect on how it couldn’t happen. With barely a third of Americans supporting him and some of the worst economic marks in modern history, how is Biden holding onto the little support he still has?

Manzanita Miller is an associate analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation. 

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