The State of the 2024 Election - Six Months to Go
If you know anything about politics, you know that six months is a lifetime. Anything can happen, wars, scandals, bad economies, oh wait, all of that has already happened. So, as we have come to that crucial point in the election cycle, I thought it might be a good time to check in and see just exactly where things stand six months out from election night 2024. But it’s also a good time to get a lay of the land because of two very significant recent events. A recent New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Enquirer poll that, should the numbers contained within it hold up, will practically be a death blow to the Democrat Party, and the most recent Trump rally, held in a very blue state with a very large attendance.
First off, results of the poll. Off the top, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden in five of the six swing states. In four of those five states, the numbers are outside the margin of error. They are numbers that should have Democrats looking as though they have seen the ghost of Walter Mondale. The poll breaks down registered voters and likely voters and goes something like this: In Arizona, Trump leads Biden 49-42 percent with registered voters, 49-43 among likely voters.
Georgia: Trump over Biden 49-39 percent with registered voters, 50-41 with likely voters.
Michigan: Trump over Biden 49-42 percent with registered voters, Biden 47-46 with likely voters.
Nevada: Trump over Biden 50-38 percent with registered voters, 51-38 with likely voters.
Pennsylvania: Trump over Biden 47-44 percent with registered voters, 48-45 with likely voters.
Wisconsin: Biden over Trump 47-45 percent with registered voters, Trump over Biden 47-46 with likely voters.
Even with the third-party candidate anticipated to get the most votes, that being Independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. thrown in the mix, the numbers don’t come out all that much differently, which is an interesting factoid, given the fact that the conventional wisdom was that Kennedy would pull votes from both Trump and Biden, but now the thought is that he will pull mostly Biden voters.
These numbers have held pretty steady since November of 2023, as the economy and immigration continue to be the number one issues for Americans. But what should be the most terrifying facts about this poll, are the large numbers of black, Hispanic, and young voters, demographics who have been traditionally strong Democrat voting blocs, leaving the Democrat Party in droves to vote for Donald Trump. Trump and Biden are in a dead heat among voters aged 18-29 and Hispanic voters. Each of these groups voted for Joe Biden by more than 60 percent in 2020. But even as Biden tries to buy the votes of young people with the promise of paying off their student debt, and panders to those protesting the Israel-Hamas war they are still worried about being able to find a job once they are out of school, and very concerned that in the present economy, buying a house is out of the question at least for now. CNN Commentator Van Jones recently said, “It should be a wake-up call. Young people are upset, and it’s not just the situation in Gaza. The economic prospects for young people are miserable, and that’s been building under Obama, it’s been building under Trump, it’s been building under Biden. We just do not have a pathway for young people to be able to pay off their student debt, get a house. People are looking at this AI wave and are worried about what job, what career path – and so that pain has to be spoken to directly and specifically. And I think that we’re not yet hearing a full-throated approach to the young people. There’s a symbolic piece about the student loans, that’s not gonna be enough for Joe Biden.” If Van Jones is this scared, you know it’s bad.
But if young people and Hispanic voters moving to the Trump column isn’t frightening enough for Democrats, it’s the percentage of black votes the Democrat party is hemorrhaging that might be the reason they need to be talked off the ledge. Currently, Donald Trump is getting roughly 20 percent of the black vote. Something no Republican presidential candidate has done since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black Americans are waking up in large numbers to the fact that the Democrat party has been making them promises for 50 years and they have nothing to show for it. Democrats telling black voters that Republicans are racists no longer works, and they know it. But they will no doubt keep trying to make it work. They don’t have any other plays in the playbook.
All the indictments and legal shenanigans are also clearly not working the way Democrats had hoped they would. Keeping Donald Trump in a courtroom all week long just isn’t working out. Last weekend, Trump held a rally in solidly blue New Jersey at Wildwood Beach. The New Jersey rally was also about a 90-minute drive from Philadelphia. Crowd estimates were easily between 80 to 100,000 people, in New Jersey. Make no mistake, Democrats know how much trouble they are in.
This is all very encouraging. But the worst thing Republicans can do is to get complacent. We must count on the fact that Democrats will cheat, and the key to that cheating may just lie with illegal immigrants. We can’t play the early voting, vote by mail, and ballot harvesting game as well as Democrats, we have to play it better. We have to play like it is the bottom of the 9th and we are down a bunch of runs. After all, we have a country to save.