Biden Trails Trump in RCP Averages; Job Performance Numbers in the Tank, Popular Vote Victory Possible

Looking at the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls for November’s election, one understands why Democratic prosecutors are anxious to cripple GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump with ridiculous criminal indictments, and, possibly, prison time.

The RCP averages show Biden in big trouble. Biden is still trailing not only in the average of nationwide polls, but also in the crucial seven battleground states he needs to keep his nemesis out of the White House.

Biden’s approval ratings aren’t just in the doldrums — they’re at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Come November, he might find himself moving from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue back home to round-the-clock nursing care and lazy nights eating ice cream cones and watching reruns of Matlock and Murder, She Wrote with “Dr.” Jill.

The Numbers

The RCP general election average has Trump ahead of the president by a half point, 45.5-45.

That’s less than Trump’s lead in May, when he led by 1.1, but he’s still ahead. 

As for the seven battlegrounds, Biden is in deep trouble.

The margins are about the same as they were in May, with Trump ahead by these margins:

Trump has expanded his lead in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Though his lead in the other states is smaller, he’s still ahead.

The 270 To Win electoral map shows Trump winning 313 election votes to 225 if he sweeps the battleground states. And he doesn’t need them all to win.

Bigger Win Than 2016

But Trump’s margin of victory might even be larger than in 2016, analyst Micah Allen wrote for the Daily Caller.

Allen thinks Trump might prevail not only in the electoral college, but also in the popular vote.

“Trump’s 306-232 electoral college victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, the biggest electoral college victory for a Republican since 1988, coincided with a 2% loss to the Democratic candidate in the national vote,” he wrote. “The race ultimately came down to roughly 100,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”

Biden’s 306-232 victory, though, came with a much larger share of the popular vote. He prevailed by 4.5 percent. Some 40,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin settled the race, Allen wrote.

“It will be difficult for the Democrats to win a presidential election in which they lose the popular vote, or even win it by less than 4.5%, should this year’s results be anything like 2016 and 2020,” he continued. For even if Trump wins the popular vote by 1 percent, his electoral victory will be larger than in 2016, Allen believes. 

“A projection adjusted for each state’s 2020 result by the change in the national polls, and taking into account 2020’s polling error, would yield a result that strongly favors Trump, showing the former president winning by a larger electoral vote margin than he did in 2016,” he continued:

In this scenario, swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are deemed ‘Likely Trump’ (between 6 and 9.99%) with other more Democratic-friendly swing states like Michigan and Nevada landing in the ‘Lean Trump’ column (between 2 and 5.99%). Trump also flips the Democratic-leaning states of Minnesota and New Hampshire by a ‘Tilt’ margin (.01-1.99%) in this calculation.

Some reliably blue states are also decided by narrower margins than expected, with Illinois, Oregon and New Jersey being deemed ‘Likely Biden,’ according to this projection. The same goes for Colorado and New Mexico, each of which earned a ‘Lean Biden’ designation.

Notably, Biden would win Maine and Virginia, which leaned significantly toward Democrats in 2020, by only ‘Tilt’ margins, according to this projection.

It is also likely that, if the final four states to be called on election night are Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine and Virginia, then a former president will be returning to the White House for the first time since 1893.

Biden’s Poor Performance

That scenario seems all the more likely given that inflation is killing the gas, food, and rent budgets of the middle class, another dark cloud reflected in the RCP averages of Biden’s performance.

Those numbers suggest one thing. Americans have had enough of Bidenomics and “build back better.” They’d like to put gas in the car and food on the table without draining their bank accounts to the last penny.

Almost 66 percent of those polled believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, a number that has increased from a month ago. Another almost 56 percent disapprove of Biden’s performance as president. 

On the economy, 58.2 percent disapprove of Biden’s performance. Biden’s inflation number is worse — a whopping 63.2 percent disapprove. Like inflation, Biden’s immigration number shows an unpopular president in deep trouble: 61.5 percent apparently want the Biden “migrant” invasion stopped. Those surveyed don’t like his performance on crime, either: 55 percent give Biden a thumbs down.

All that adds up to one thing. Biden is hanging on to the presidency by his fingernails as job performance goes.

And given that Americans certainly know Biden is declining mentally and physically, he could, again, find himself out of a job on January 20.