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At this point in 1980 Carter was still well ahead of Reagan.

But the killer was that ~80 percent of people felt that the USA was on the wrong track, and they eventually decided Carter was hopeless and couldn’t fix it. All Carter had was doubts about Reagan.

In Trump’s case, people know that he can do the job, and do it better than what has been since 2001.

The wrong track number is more like 70 percent already.

[At this point in 1980 Carter was still well ahead of Reagan.

But the killer was that ~80 percent of people felt that the USA was on the wrong track, and they eventually decided Carter was hopeless and couldn’t fix it. All Carter had was doubts about Reagan.

In Trump’s case, people know that he can do the job, and do it better than what has been since 2001.

The wrong track number is more like 70 percent already.]

The key here is both men are known quantities, have done the job before, and we have comparables for the major pollsters for the same points in the election cycle. For Quinnipiac, Marist, Yougov, we have like for like polls for each pollster. And in each case, Biden’s margin is down by high single digits in 2024 as compared to 2020. Biden was up high single digits consistently in 2020. He is about even now. Given that weeks before the election, the pollsters overestimated Biden’s 4.5% victory margin by 4%, polling even with Trump now is not a good place to be.

Biden polled much higher in 04/2020 than he did close to the election. If 2024 follows that pattern, Biden’s numbers could start going underwater consistently. Trump’s decent showing in the polls is likely what’s driving his fundraising numbers. No one wants to give to a losing campaign. A winning one is a different proposition.