With the stakes so high, Democrats keep trying—and failing—to find emotional sustenance in the polls. But Trump has led Biden in 16 of the 21 national horserace polls conducted in the last month. The common explanations for Biden’s poll-vault problems feed the fear factor: the president’s age (81), waning support from Black voters, disaffection among younger voters, and Bronx cheers on handling the ecomomy.
But—and, boy, is this a big “but”—polls more than 11 months before a presidential election have the accuracy of a blindfolded archer. As ABC polling analyst G. Elliott Morris put it in a blog post last month, “Polls are not predictive—at all, frankly—this early before an election. There is some evidence that early polls have gotten more predictive as polarization has increased, but it’s not robust enough to offer a conclusion for the future.”
The truth—which you will almost never hear on a TV pundit panel where everyone bristles with certainty—is that the outcome of the 2024 election is unknowable at this stage. As worrisome as the early indicators are for the president, it should be remembered that the election is not scheduled for next Tuesday. In fact, Biden can find inspiration from 18th century American naval hero John Paul Jones who allegedly declared at a perilous moment: “I have not yet begun to fight.”