Leaked Dem Poll Shows Biden Nightmare Coming True
President Joe Biden's week has gone from bad to worse following the presidential debate.
Not only are Democratic politicians and pundits openly panicking about Biden's disastrous performance on Thursday, but polling results leaked to the digital news outlet Puck on Tuesday reveal that he has lost more than just ground in swing states.
Even states previously considered Democratic strongholds are now in play, according to a memo from an influential Democratic polling firm.
The memo, reported by veteran political journalist and former CNN correspondent Peter Hamby, originated from the progressive polling group OpenLabs.
OpenLabs, a nonprofit organization, “conducts polling and message-testing for a constellation of Democratic groups, including the 501(c)4 nonprofit associated with Future Forward, the preferred Super PAC for Biden’s reelection campaign,” Hamby wrote.
However, the news about polling in the 72 hours after the Atlanta debate is unlikely to comfort the Biden team.
The memo found that 40 percent of voters who supported Biden in 2020 now believe he should withdraw from this year's race, Hamby wrote. This is a significant increase from the 25 percent who felt that way in an OpenLabs poll conducted in May.
Hamby noted a caveat about the results but also emphasized that OpenLabs is taken seriously by Democratic strategists.
“This is, of course, only a single poll, conducted during the initial aftershocks of the debate. It will take a few weeks to determine if Biden’s slippage in the polls is a trend and not a blip,” he wrote. “But given their reputation inside the party and connections to Future Forward, OpenLabs is a firm that Democratic campaigns take seriously.”
The poll revealed that Biden's support in the swing states, which will decide the November election, has been significantly affected by the debate.
“In the tipping-point state of Pennsylvania, Biden now trails by 7 points, compared to 5 points before the debate,” Hamby wrote. “He has also dropped in Michigan, where he now trails Trump by 7. OpenLabs also found that he is now losing by roughly 10 points in Georgia and Arizona, and by almost 9 points in Nevada.”
This alone suggests a disaster for Democrats, but the data Hamby reported about states previously considered safely blue should be alarming.
“Biden is now only winning by a fraction of a point in Virginia, Maine, Minnesota, and New Mexico — and he’s now only winning Colorado by around 2 points,” Hamby wrote.
NEW: Biden is losing critical support in key battlegrounds, according to leaked data from a premier Democratic firm, and putting previously noncompetitive states in play. (Plus: he’s polling behind Kamala Harris for the first time.)@PeterHamby reports. https://t.co/Ywp4Fvt4PY
— Puck (@PuckNews) July 2, 2024
All of this is likely to increase the clamor among some Democrats to find a way to get Biden to withdraw from the race and for the party to find a new candidate to battle the presumptive GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump.
In the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s debate, even the reliably left-leaning talking heads on CNN and MSNBC were rattled by Biden’s performance.
In the days since, even the most left-leaning establishment media outlets have been forced to cover Democratic unease about the president going into November.
On Tuesday, Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first congressional Democrat to suggest that Biden should follow President Lyndon Johnson's example in 1968 and withdraw from the race.
While Texas is solidly red and Doggett’s words are unlikely to change the outcome there, Virginia, Maine, Minnesota, and New Mexico are different stories. For Democrats, losing in those states would be like reliving the nightmare of Republican Ronald Reagan’s 49-state landslide in 1984.
If those states are as competitive as the leaked memo indicates, it spells trouble for Biden's team and Democrats in general.