Despite some predictable attempts to lower expectations, both candidates and their allies have spent time and money portraying each other in as negative a light as possible, with Trump as a crazed felon and Biden as a frail and mentally astute incumbent president.
Whoever effectively refutes those portrayals could be declared the winner by the end of the 90-minute debate. The debate is being billed as Biden's best opportunity to change the trajectory of his campaign, but each candidate has much to gain and lose depending on their performance. The debate will be hosted by CNN and will not have a studio audience, but will be simulcast by the major broadcast and cable networks.
For nearly a year, the Biden-Trump race has remained flat in the polls, with Trump holding a slight lead in national polls and modest leads in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. This has made Democrats increasingly nervous. Why? Because Biden has never trailed Trump in any national Washington Post-ABC News poll in 2020.
There have been some recent developments in Biden's favor since Trump was convicted in New York of 34 felony counts, including paying hush money to porn stars and falsifying business records. These developments have been incremental at best, and the two candidates remain statistically close nationwide. Battleground states remain close, but Trump has a slim lead over Biden in many states this year.
Biden currently leads Trump by 0.2 percentage points, according to a tally of national polls compiled by The Washington Post's polling division in June. Trump led by 1.2 percentage points in March, just before the president's State of the Union address. The current polling average, which includes third-party candidates, has the two tied, with Trump leading by 0.6 percentage points in May. Overall, that's a small change.
One of the most notable poll averages is FiveThirtyEight showed Biden leading Trump by 0.2 percentage points, 40.7 percent to 40.5 percent, as of Friday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was at 9.7 percent in that tally. The day before he was convicted in New York, Trump was leading by 1.2 percentage points in that average.
RealClearPolitics, another popular polling site, shows Trump leading by 0.5 percentage points. Just before Biden's State of the Union address, Trump's lead was 2.3 percentage points. The day before the conviction, it was 1.2 percentage points. If you include third-party candidates, Trump has a 1.3 percentage point lead. RealClearPolitics noted on Friday that, perhaps as a reality check to remind people that 2024 is not 2020, so far in 2020, its average of polls shows Biden leading Trump by 9.8 percentage points. Percentage points.
FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver, who left the company last year, posted on X that, by one calculation, Biden has “gained 0.8 percentage points since conviction, which is no small number.”
Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who has been more bullish on Biden than many other Democrats, posted on X that Biden has been gaining ground in the polls lately. “The election now appears to be shifting,” he wrote. Maybe so.
One recent poll that got a lot of attention was from Fox News, which showed Biden up two percentage points, 50 percent to 48 percent. The organization's May poll had him trailing Trump by one point, and in March he was trailing Trump by five points, 50 percent to 45 percent. Biden's two-point lead is within the poll's margin of error.
Around the same time as the Fox News poll, a new NPR/PBS/Marist poll was released that showed movement in a different direction but received less attention: It showed Biden and Trump tied at 49 percent each, with Biden leading by 2 percentage points in late May.
Polling articles abound as news organizations try to analyze different segments of the electorate. The Post recently In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, the results of a large-scale survey targeting so-called “deciders,” voters in battleground states who have not yet decided whether they will vote in the November presidential election or whose voting history indicates that they are undecided, have been released.
The poll found that many of these “deciders” are more naturally in Biden's camp but are considering voting for a candidate outside the major parties. These voters are less enthusiastic about choosing between Biden and Trump, don't think their vote really matters, and aren't paying as much attention as more determined voters.
Other recent articles have offered a glimpse into the electorate's current state. The New York Times looked at the election from a gender perspective, reporting that Biden's lead among women is smaller than Trump's among men, which it called a “wake-up call for Democrats.”
A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that elderly voters could be Biden's “secret weapon” against Trump this fall. Voters over 65 are the most reliable and consistent voters among the electorate, and Republicans have won over voters over 65 in every election since 2000.
According to a Wall Street Journal article, national and battleground state polls this year have Biden winning about 48% of voters, roughly the same as in 2020, while Trump has about 46%, down from an estimated 51% in 2020.
Many articles have focused on Biden's declining support among black and Hispanic voters. Biden's support is weaker among younger voters overall: A USA Today/Suffolk University poll of black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania found his support has dropped significantly since 2020. Trump is not particularly popular among these voters, but more than four in 10 currently say they are undecided about whether they will support the former president or one of the third-party candidates.
Democratic strategists, speaking on condition of anonymity to offer candid analyses of the race, cited a number of factors for the slight tilt in Biden's favor, though some did not see it as significant and noted Biden's path to winning an Electoral College majority is difficult given the situation in battleground states.
One idea is that some voters who were previously undecided or looking to third-party candidates now view Biden more favorably or are more worried about Trump, and relatedly, that Trump's conviction was a wake-up call for voters that it's time to pay more attention.
The Biden campaign is committed to attacking President Trump as crazy, worse than he was before and even more dangerous if re-elected. That's the message being conveyed in ads, daily emails, TV surrogates and the president's own campaign rally. Trump has joined in the attack with disjointed and disgruntled performances at his rallies.
That will be part of Biden's message in Thursday's debate. Biden's advisers are hoping Trump will try to stay disciplined for the 90 minutes and stay focused on the issues that are most favorable to him, such as immigration, inflation and the current perception that the country was better when he was president than it is now. Will Trump justify what the Biden campaign is saying about him by going off script, as he has done at rallies?
But Democrats are just as worried, if not more, about how well Biden will hold up for 90 minutes. He clearly cannot afford any gaffes or moments that intensify concerns about his age and whether he can serve another four years in office.
Given the lack of real movement in the polls so far this year, barring a major misstep, it's doubtful Thursday's debate will have enough of a jolt to fundamentally change voters. But it could still have significant consequences. In a year when the margins of victory are likely to be slim, even a slight gain for any one candidate could mean a lot. And a poor performance could be more costly than usual.
