Last week Rasmussen began its White House Watch poll, which will extend to Election Day. In the first survey, Joe Biden clocked in with a ten-point lead over the incumbent president. As Liberty Nation recently reported, presidential election polls tend to dance, and this week’s White House Watch underscores the fluid behavior of the American electorate.
Now only three points separate President Donald Trump from the former vice president.
Survey Says …
The Rasmussen Poll is a “national telephone and online survey” of 2,500 likely voters. As the sample size is more than ample for a nationwide poll, it carries a 95% level of confidence and the margin of error is only +/- 2%. The Rasmussen folks are straight shooters, not prone to oversampling Democrats, which is often the case with most newspaper and broadcast polling outfits.
All this adds up to a survey that should be watched closely as Nov. 3 draws nearer. The participants were asked only one simple question: “If the presidential race in 2020 was between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who would you vote for?” Forty-seven percent of the respondents supported Biden, and 44% went to Trump. Another 5% went to other candidates, and 4% said they were undecided.
This comes on the heels of several primary races, which highlight a fundamental problem hampering Democrats. Indeed, the results of July 14’s contests should send a chill through the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as it grapples with a party increasingly divided.
In Texas and Kentucky, establishment senatorial candidates barely squeaked by the progressives. Fox News contributor Douglas Schoen warned of a dangerous trend for Democrats, writing that “overall primary results thus far reveal the ascendancy of the progressive movement within the party.”
As the leftists put a full-court press on the party, Democratic candidates, including Biden, are finding themselves in a tight spot. Should they pander to the progressives or stay in the center lane where the most votes can be found? Schoen, a veteran political pundit, responded bluntly:
“Given the clear progressive insurgency within the Democratic Party across the country, there will also likely be greater pressure on the party to embrace left-leaning policies, such as defunding the police, which are unpopular with the general electorate. Doing so could cost the Democrats the presidency, the Senate, and even their current House majority.”
Schoen’s point is well taken if you factor in that, over the last two decades, Gallup polls consistently revealed that as much as 38% of the American electorate identify as moderate.
The struggle to find the heart and soul of a political party in a presidential election year poses serious problems for the Democrats and Biden in particular. Thus far, his actions demonstrate a willingness to appease the progressive wing of his party. However, while his political ideology has swung wildly over the course of his many decades as a politician, Biden is a known quantity who has never closely aligned with the radical fringes of the Democratic Party. A taffy pull between the moderates and progressives certainly makes things dicier for him as we march on to November. Such an expansive sway over one week in a well-conducted survey proves that the road to the White House will be bumpy. But the recent seven-point gain by Trump may indicate that the Democratic Party and its top candidate can’t seem to nail down their platform or their voters.
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Read more from Leesa K. Donner.
