According to a Morning Consult poll released on Thursday, Oct 19th, former President Donald Trump is beating President Joe Biden in several key swing states.
Swing State Trouble
An average of polls conducted in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Trump beats Biden by 4%.
A poll by Emerson College released on October 9th had Trump leading Biden by nine percentage points in Pennsylvania. Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.17% against Trump in 2020.
In a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll shared on Sunday, October 22nd, Trump and Biden were tied at 36.5% in a four-way race that also included Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West.
Dave Wasserman, from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, shared on X on October 13th that, “Biden’s numbers are so bad he’d lose to an indicted Trump.”
Lately, Biden has been suffering from low approval ratings hovering around the low 40s, similar to Trump’s low approval ratings leading into the 2020 election.
Biden Campaign Not Worried
Despite all of these poor results, the Biden campaign isn’t in a panic because the election is still more than a year away.
And while Biden’s approval ratings may be low, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama both had similar approval ratings according to Gallup at this point in the election, and they both won reelection.
Aware of these early poor polling results, the Biden campaign is trying a few new things.
The Biden team plans to launch organizing pilot projects in Wisconsin and Arizona.
The focus will be on “relational organizing”, which entails supporters using their existing relationships to drum up excitement.
A New Way to Campaign
The theory behind relational organizing is that people have grown tired of traditional campaigning methods– TV ads, direct mail, and strangers canvassing door-to-door.
These days, people are more likely to consume information on their phones or through networks like TikTok, which forbids political ads.
Team Biden plans to create materials that can be shared in these more personal networks.
As Meg DiMartino, a Democratic party official said, “You cannot unsubscribe from your mom in the way you can unsubscribe from other organizations.” If all goes well, the strategy will go national.
The Biden campaign also plans on expanding its $25 million early advertising push in battleground states.
The challenge is to get the word out about Biden’s accomplishments as President without alienating voters who remain dissatisfied with the economy, unaware of Biden’s legislative wins, or wary of a second Biden term in general.
A Head Start
The aim of the program is to start experimenting with messaging early.
Regardless of who wins, experts expect 2024 to be a close election, just as it was in 2020 and 2016.
The post Latest Polls Indicate Close Presidential Race Between Biden and Trump first appeared on Edge Media.
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