Former President Donald Trump has extended his lead in polls against incumbent President Joe Biden into the month of May, according to the latest average of national polls compiled by RealClearPolling.com, with 46.1 percent to Biden’s 44.9 percent in the head-to-head matchup.
In fact, since the beginning of the cycle, of the 302 national polls taken, Trump has led 156 of them, or 51.6 percent of them. Biden has led 104 of them, or 34.4 percent, and 42 of them were tied, or 13.9 percent.
Compared to the 2020 cycle, when 293 polls were taken, Biden led 285 of them, or 97 percent.
And in 2016, Hillary Clinton led 219 out of 259 polls taken, or 85 percent of them.
Both predicted the Democratic candidates would win the popular vote in 2020 and 2016, respectively.
The implication is that the popular vote is in play in 2024 — in favor of Trump — a feat no Republican candidate has managed in 20 years since George W. Bush was reelected in 2004.
That year, Bush led John Kerry in 130 out of 233 polls, or 55.7 percent of them. Kerry led 76 of the polls, or 32.6 percent. 27 of the polls were tied, or 11.6 percent.
Is history repeating itself?
It is worth noting that no Republican who has won the popular vote has ever lost the national election for the Electoral College, but that has happened to Democrats more than once, including Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 most recently, who both won the popular vote but lost the election via the Electoral College.
Biden’s situation does not improve by adding Robert Kennedy, Jr., Cornell West and Jill Stein to the polls. In the five-way race, Trump is leading the average of recent polls, 41.5 percent to Biden’s 38.8 percent, Kennedy’s 10.8 percent, West’s 2 percent and Stein’s 1 percent.
And, of the 57 national polls taken in the five-way race, Trump has led 40 of them, or 70 percent of them. Biden has led seven of them, or just 12.3 percent. Nine were tied, or 15.7 percent.
The reasons are not mysterious. Since Feb. 2021, consumer prices are up 18.5 percent, but personal income is still only up 17.6 percent, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Americans have not gotten ahead in the current economy after almost $7 trillion was printed, borrowed and spent for Covid. In fact, they are not better off than they were four years ago.
Add to that the botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden’s mandatory Covid vaccines for government employees (he even tried it for the private sector, too) and his Justice Department, and Democratic prosecutors in Georgia and New York, prosecuting Biden’s rival, Trump, with criminal charges, even attempting to throw him off the ballot.
The latter point cannot be overstated: Biden and Democrats are so afraid of Trump they want to lock him and throw away the key, and if that fails, disenfranchise his millions of supporters by barring him from running. That is panic personified.
And it appears to be backfiring. When the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago occurred in Aug. 2022, Trump was surging in the national polls, and the speculation was that it would hurt Trump politically. It didn’t. Despite that, media outlets continue to poll what a conviction of Trump might do to the race.
The truth is, the prosecution of Trump defies the American people’s sense of fair play, and that it is they — not the Washington, D.C. establishment and not the media — who will decide who the President will be. As it should be.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
