… Polls

A recent poll from ABC News/Washington Post reports former U.S. president Donald Trump (R–Florida) nationally leads current U.S. president Joe Biden (D–Delaware), in a hypothetical general-election matchup, by +9 percentage points. (It reads as: Trump 51% vs. Biden 42%.)

(Source: Trump edges out Biden 51-42 in head-to-head matchup: POLL.)

In 2020, Biden unseated Trump with a U.S. Popular Vote margin of +4.45 percentage points. (Outcome: Biden 51.26% vs. Trump 46.80%.)

The reaction, more than this poll, interests me.

People know that polls, a year or so in advance of a general election for a presidential election, is not necessarily what will play out. That it was a poll. 

Insiders know whether a given poll is believable given, in part, the sampling and the crosstabs.

Mainstream Democratic Party-friendly outlets freaked out and were whining about this poll. There was another poll, this past summer, with Trump nationally leading Biden by +6. That poll, too, caused a meltdown among the same faction.

People really taking to this most recent poll should keep in mind that many people are not tuned in. A lot of people do not want to address electoral politics until Election Time has arrived.

I estimate Election Time as a 60-day window. The general election will be Tuesday, November 5, 2024. So, perhaps September 5, 2024 can be considered the start of when people will be moving themselves to that point of decision.

(This is the first of a series of electoral-related topics which will run through November 6, 2023.)

UPDATE 10.02.2023 @ 07:30 P.M. ET: Revolutionary Blackout published to YouTube a video clip, from a previous livestream, with reaction. It is certainly related to this blog topic.