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The new national New York Times/Siena College poll offers a mixed bag for President Joe Biden. The Democrat has stronger support from his party than a year ago, but the incumbent still has a low approval rating, and much of the public isn’t giving the president credit for the nation’s improved standing. The result, as the Times reported, is a 2024 race in which he appears to be tied with his likely Republican rival.
Perhaps most worryingly for Democrats, the poll found Mr. Biden in a neck-and-neck race with former President Donald J. Trump, who held a commanding lead among likely Republican primary voters even as he faces two criminal indictments and more potential charges on the horizon. Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were tied at 43 percent apiece in a hypothetical rematch in 2024, according to the poll.
At this point, readers might expect me to spend a few paragraphs marveling at how Trump could be tied with Biden, despite the twice-impeached, twice-indicted Republican’s record of corruption, incompetence, dishonesty, mismanagement, broken promises, and increasingly overt opposition to democracy and the pillars of our system of government. I’d throw in some rhetorical questions about how anyone could credibly make the case that the former president hasn’t yet disqualified himself from positions of public trust.
And while we could have that conversation, we won’t, because there’s another angle to the data that’s also worth keeping in mind.
Taking stock of the latest findings, the Times’ Nate Cohn noted in passing that the apparent fact that Biden and Trump are currently tied isn’t necessarily “predictive” of the final result, “certainly not with 15 nonths to go.”
I think that’s both true and underappreciated.
I can appreciate why polling results like these are enticing and the subject of considerable chatter. What’s more, I don’t want to be a hypocrite about this: I’d be lying if I said I completely ignore the data. Survey findings like these offer a snapshot in time, giving us some sense of who’s well positioned right now. The polls are interesting insofar as they tell us how the public is reacting to current conditions and recent events.
But for those wondering who’s likely to win the 2024 election, I’d recommend great caution — because polling data this far out offers more heat than light.
The Washington Monthly’s Bill Scher recently flagged some related polling data from years past that helped drive the point home. Around this time 12 years ago, for example, national polling showed Mitt Romney ahead of Barack Obama by a few percentage points. Around this time 18 years ago, national polling showed Bob Dole leading Bill Clinton by a slightly larger margin. Around the time 30 years ago, national polling found Ronald Reagan — who ended up winning re-election while carrying 49 out of 50 states — trailing some of his leading Democratic contenders.
The point, of course, is that 15 months in electoral politics might as well be 15 years. No one can predict with confidence what the political landscape will look like a year from now, and how those conditions might affect voters’ attitudes.
For all intents and purposes, the 2024 presidential election remains hypothetical: Voters aren’t yet engaged; nominating contests haven’t begun; the race’s defining issues remain undefined; messaging and advertising remains on the horizon; and pollsters aren’t even trying to craft a meaningful model of the likely national electorate.
I’m not saying people should ignore polls like these, but it’s best to exercise caution before getting too excited about general election polls 15 months before voters cast their ballot.